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“Why — why, they’re — they’re baby clothes, Jackie!” — 
Page 35. 



SANDY JOE 


MARY T.- WAGGAMAN 

-I 

Author of “Strong-Arm of Avalon,” “The Play- 
water Plot,” “Captain Ted,” etc* 



New York, Cincinnati, Chicago 

BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS OP BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE 

1916 



V' 




COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY BENZIGER BROTHERS 


•I- • t 

K * 



MAR 18 1916 

©CI,A427306 



J CONTENTS 


Chapter I 

PAGE 

Joe and Jackie 7 

Chapter II 

Jackie’s Home 20 

Chapter III 

Gran 32 

Chapter IV 

A Terrible Night 44 

Chapter V 

A Home and a New Life 56 

Chapter VI 

Under the Memorial Window ..... 71 

Chapter VII 

Larchmont 86 

Chapter VIII 

A Trying Day 99 

Chapter IX 

Tried and True 114 


5 


6 CONTENTS 

Chapter X 

PAGE 

In the Ro MAINE 127 

Chapter XI 

In the Hospital 140 

Chapter XII 

Father More’s Visitors 154 

Chapter XIII 

Darkened Ways 167 

Chapter XIV 

At the Old Light 180 

Chapter XV 

At Last . 195 


SANDY JOE 


CHAPTER I 

JOE AND JACKIE 

‘‘Traders, — here’s your evening papers, peep- 

A ers, pipers!” 

It was one of Sandy Joe’s jokes to ring these 
changes in his vowels, while the merry twinkle 
in his eyes made selling newspapers on a bleak 
wintry comer seem capital fun; though just 
where the fun came in it would be hard for any 
“grown-up,” looking at the gaunt, ragged boy 
with the shivering little girl clinging to his side, 
to see. But Sandy Joe, whose nickname had 
been won as much by his cheery pluck as by his 
curly red hair, could catch gleams of light in 
the darkest and wintriest sky. 

“Only ten more to sell, Jackie,” he said to 
the little girl by his side, “and then we’re off 


8 


JOE AND JACKIE 


home with two piping hot sausages and a good 
square loaf of bread. Only ten! Slip your 
hand in my pocket to keep it warm.” 

“Oh, it’s so cold, Joe!” said the small girl, 
whose wan face peeped out from the folds of 
an old red shawl that enveloped her from head 
to feet. “I’m so cold and tired and hungry, 
Joe!” 

“I’ll make it three sausages, then, Jackie — 
three sausages and a sugar- topped bun. You 
see, you will come out here to meet me, and 
business is business and must be done.” 

“Gran was so cross!” sighed Jackie, with a 
shiver. “And the fire was out and there wasn’t 
any wood.” 

“Well, it was the sort of mix-up to cut loose 
from, I must say,” laughed Joe. “Never 
mind ! We’ll have a rip-roaring blaze when I 
get home, and a pinch of tea for the old lady’s 
pot that will put her into near as good humor 
as she can come; and then she will nod off to 
sleep, and we’ll tell stories, Jackie — the kind of 
stories you like — about fairy princesses and all 
that sort of swell stuff that suits little girls like 


JOE AND JACKIE 


9 


you. I ain’t much in that line myself. I like 
things a bit tougher — Indians and pirates and 
cow-punchers. But now I’ve got just the thing 
for you, that I found in an old paper down in 
my pocket. Paper, sir*?” cried Joe, briskly 
returning to business as a gentleman hurried 
by. 

“No!” snapped the sour-faced personage 
sharply. 

“Paper, miss?” the young merchant turned 
unabashed to a pretty shop-girl, who shook her 
head with an answering smile. 

Half a dozen more pedestrians hurried by, 
regardless of Joe’s cheerful offers. It looked 
as if business was bad this afternoon, and the 
sugar- topped bun a luxury beyond Jackie’s 
reach. And, oh, how the January wind whis- 
tled around the bleak comer! How the old 
ragged red shawl waved and fluttered, and 
Jackie’s poor little frame shivered in the icy 
blast ! 

“Oh, Joe, Joe!” she whimpered. “I’m so 
cold, Joe! Please let’s go home! You won’t 
sell any more to-day, I know.” 


10 


JOE AND JACKIE 


‘'Can’t give up yet, Jackie,” Joe replied, 
with a resolute shake of his sandy head. 
“Why, if I gave up like that, this here beat 
wouldn’t be worth shoe-leather to stand in. 
Not that yours or mine counts for very much,” 
added Joe, with a glance at the ragged boots of 
the pair. “Gee whiz, you poor little midget, 
if yours ain’t busted clean through ! That’s a 
shame, sure. But never mind! Just let me 
get these papers olf, Jackie, and I’ll carry you 
home, and we’ll put a patch on those shoes to- 
night that will make them good as new. Old 
Tim the cobbler showed me how to do it, with a 
skein of waxed thread and an old boot-leg. 
Papers, sir? Evening papers?” Joe burst 
forth again, as a closed carriage dashed up to 
the curb, and stopped so close that Jackie’s 
fluttering red shawl was caught in the wheels. 

“Oh, poor child!” cried a sweet voice, and 
the loveliest lady Jackie had ever seen looked 
out of the window into the little girl’s fright- 
ened face. “Have we hurt you, dear?” 

“Dear!” It was an altogether new word 
in poor little Jackie’s vocabulary. “Dear!” 


JOE AND JACKIE 


11 


Joe, it is true, had pet names for her; but no 
one in all Jackie’s brief years of remembrance 
had ever looked or spoken like this. She could 
only lift her soft brown eyes to the speaker’s 
face in bewildered amazement. 

“No, ma’am, — no,” said Joe, deftly loosen- 
ing the shawl. “She isn’t hurt a bit. Papers, 
sir^” to the handsome gentleman muffled in a 
fur-lined overcoat, who held out his hand to 
him. 

“Yes — quick, boy — quick! I’m in a hurry 
to catch the train. Can you change a dollar?” 

“Sorry, sir.” Joe dived ruefully into his 
ragged pocket, and then his face broke out in 
his usual smile. “Just — just banked all my 
cash,” he said, with a twinkle in his blue eyes. 
“But never mind! Take the paper, sir, if 
you’re in a hurry. You’ll find me here any 
afternoon. It’s all right.” And Joe lifted his 
cap with a grace that many a luckier boy could 
not have managed, as the carriage drove away. 

“Oh, Phil, no, no!” said the lady, as her hus- 
band sank back in his seat with his paper. 
“Give the boy the dollar, Phil.” 


12 


JOE AND JACKIE 


“Eh, what, dear?” 

“Let us turn back and give that poor boy the 
dollar.” The lady’s sweet voice trembled in 
its eagerness. 

“Turn back!” echoed her husband. “My 
dear Nell, it’s an even chance if we catch our 
train now. We haven’t a second to lose. I’ll 
see the little chap the next time I’m in town and 
give him his money with interest. He can’t 
miss two cents, poor little beggar !” 

“Oh, but he can and he may, Phil! You 
men that have been rich all your lives don’t 
know what two cents sometimes mean. And 
he wasn’t a beggar either. He treated you 
more like a gentleman — than you treated him.” 

“You are right, my dear!” her husband 
laughed good-naturedly. “I did come in sec- 
ond-rate on that business transaction, I must 
confess. But I was in such a hurry, Nell! 
Don’t take it so to heart, pet ! I’ll make it five 
dollars to the little chap, if it will comfort your 
tender heart. What ! — you’re not crying about 
it, Nell !” And Mr. Phil Harper dropped his 
paper in genuine dismay as he caught sight of 


JOE AND JACKIE 


13 


the tears standing in his wife’s eyes. “Well, 
we’ll turn back. I’d rather miss a dozen trains 
than have you feel like this, sweetheart !” 

“Oh, no, Phil, — no! Don’t mind me.” 
And she slipped her little gloved hand in his. 
“I’m foolish, I know; but it was all so pitiful, 
so pathetic ! Did you see the little girl with the 
ragged red shawl and the brown eyes — such 
beautiful, wondering, sorrowful eyes, Phil*? 
The look went straight to my heart — ^my aching 
mother’s heart. And she was cold and ragged 
and perhaps hungry ; and when I think of all we 
had — to give — ours ” 

“Nell, dear Nell, I’d like to take you some 
place where you would never see a child,” said 
the gentleman, desperately. 

“It wouldn’t do any good, Phil,” was the low, 
sad answer. “The picture would be always 
there — ^in my heart. Oh, I ought not to grieve 
you with my weakness, I know ! But — 
but ” 

“It is my grief too, Nell,” he said gravely; 
“only to me you are more than anything else, 
and beside you all the babies in the world don’t 


14 


JOE AND JACKIE 


count. And — and, well, I have tried so hard to 
make it up to you, Nell !” 

‘Ah, you have — ^you have, I know !” and the 
sweet voice was like the coo of a dove. “You 
have been the best, the dearest, the tenderest of 
husbands, Phil ; and I am a weak, selfish woman 
to let you see ” 

“Oh, you can’t help it,” said the gentleman, 
putting his arm about her tenderly. “You 
can’t help letting me see how your heart is ach- 
ing and breaking. I’m a dull fellow, I know, 
but you can’t shut my eyes to that. If you 
only had something else to think about! But 
women like you don’t have to think.” 

“Oh, don’t say that, Phil !” she said eagerly. 

“I know, pet, you’ve gone in for a lot of 
things — clubs and charities and hospitals. 
And you’re an all-round angel of mercy, as 
every one knows.” 

“And I’ve been very — very gay this winter, 
as you know, Phil.” And the soft eyes looked 
up wistfully into her husband’s handsome face. 

“Oh, confoundedly gay !” he answered 
grimly. 


JOE AND JACKIE 


15 


‘‘Even your mother was satisfied with our 
New Year’s ball. And how many dinner 
dances did we give, Phil *? Five ; I am sure. I 
know the last — the last fell on baby’s birthday, 
and it nearly broke my heart. It seemed so 
dreadful to dance on my dead baby’s birthday, 
Phil !” 

“Well, there will be no more dances this 
season,” said Phil, firmly. “They are all 
‘tommy-rot,’ anyhow ; and you must have a rest. 
As soon as I get this Washington business fixed 
up, we’re off to Florida or Bermuda, or some 
place where the skies are blue and the flowers 
in bloom. You can stay with your aunt while 
I come back here for a day or two and settle 
things up for a start.” 

“And you won’t forget that nice newsboy 
when you come back — the little gentleman that 
trusted you, Phil 

“No, I won’t forget him,” said Phil, laugh- 
ing; “or he won’t forget me when I appear on 
his beat, I venture to say. He will strike me 
for high interest on that debt, I am sure. 
Likely as not, there will be a whole gang of 


16 


JOE AND JACKIE 


them after me if they catch on to the deal; for 
I shall never recognize my right man.” 

“Oh, yes, you will ! He had red hair, don’t 
you remember?- — curly red hair and merry blue 
eyes, and such a nice, laughing mouth. And 
the little girl — his sister, I suppose ; for she was 
holding on to his ragged jacket. Oh, that poor 
little girl ! To think of that little one, with her 
lovely brown eyes, shivering on the wintry 
streets ! I’ll have to send ten dollars to buy a 
coat and hood for that child, Phil,” said the 
lady, tremulously. 

“All right, my dear !” was the good-humored 
reply. “I’ll outfit the whole family, if it will 
bring you peace of mind ; though I don’t think I 
ever knew an investment to bring such big inter- 
est as that two-cent paper,” he laughed, as the 
carriage drew up at the station. “And here we 
are now just in time for the train!” 

The footman sprang to open the door; but 
Mr. Harper, motioning him aside, stepped out 
and assisted his lady to alight, as if she were too 
precious for ruder touch. And indeed, in her 
soft gray dress and silvery furs she was such a 


JOE AND JACKIE 


17 


lovely picture that she drew attention even in 
the noisy, busy throng of a great railroad sta- 
tion. 

“What a very beautiful woman!” said a 
gentleman to the friend who lifted his hat as 
Mrs. Harper passed on to the Pullman palace 
car. 

“Yes,” answered the other; “but a very sad 
one, as you can see by her face. I suppose Phil 
Harper has more money than he knows what to 
do with ; but money can’t stave off trouble, and 
they had a big knockdown several years ago. 
Country house took fire in their absence, and 
their only child, a baby about two years old, 
was burned to death — baby and nurse both. 
Mrs. Harper was very ill at the time in a pri- 
vate hospital, and it was weeks before they dared 
to tell her what had happened ; and when they 
did — well, at first they thought she would lose 
her mind. But women like her — the true-blue, 
you know — can stand a lot; though she has 
never fully recovered from the shock. No 
mother could. My wife, who knows her well, 
says, though she tries to keep up, her heart is 


18 


JOE AND JACKIE 


broken, and she is dying slowly but surely. It’s 
tough on Harper, poor fellow ; he fairly adores 
her.” 

As the two gentlemen moved away to the 
ticket-office, a woman who had been seated on 
the benches behind the speakers lifted her bent 
head and looked around with a quick, fright- 
ened glance. She was a neat little woman, 
even in her shabby dress and hat; and she had 
bright, restless eyes like a bird’s. She drew a 
long, fluttering sigh, as if she had been hold- 
ing her breath; and then turned to her com- 
panion, a brown, lean, foxy-faced man. 

“Oh, did you hear?” she whispered tremu- 
lously. 

“Yes, I heard,” he answered gruffly. 

“And — and see?” she questioned. “O 
Pierre, I nearly fainted as she passed !” 

“Pouf ! you are a fool,” said the man, rudely. 

“I thought she would forget,” continued the 
woman quickly — “that, being so rich and beau- 
tiful and happy, she could forget; and he said 
she was dying, Pierre — dying slowly but surely. 


JOE AND JACKIE 


19 


Pierre, God will never forgive us — unless — un- 
less we tell all.” 

The man turned on her with a fierce, mut- 
tered oath in French. 

‘Tell!” he echoed — “tell! Idiot, fool, 
crackbrain! What is it you say? Tell, and I 
will kill you — do you hear? — kill you! Come 
on!” And he jerked her rudely by the arm in 
a way that made her black eyes flash. “Our 
train is in: come on!” 

She arose, pale-faced and trembling, and fol- 
lowed him. 


CHAPTER II 
Jackie’s home 

J OE had in the meantime disposed of his last 
paper, and he and Jackie were making their 
way homeward through the darkening streets. 

“When we get out of this here swell neigh- 
borhood, ril hoist you on my shoulder, Jackie, 
and ease up them poor little frozen feet,” he 
said cheerily. “We don’t want to do any 
‘stunts’ around here to draw meddlers. Might 
think you were sick or lame and whisk you off 
to the asylum or hospital.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to go to the asylum, Joe ! 
Gran says they tie little girls up in rows and 
give them cat-meat,” said Jackie, shuddering 
close to her companion. 

“They might do worse than that,” laughed 
Joe. “I guess there’s many of us eating cat- 
meat and don’t know it. Why cats are any 
worse than frogs and mud-turtles, I don’t see; 

and Parley Voo at the market corner sells them 
20 


JACKIE S HOME 


21 


at twenty cents a plate. Swells come there to 
eat them, too.” 

“What are ‘swells,’ Joe*?” asked Jackie. “I 
thought they were hurts that come on your 
hands and feet.” 

“They are,” laughed Joe, with the superior 
wisdom of his fourteen years. “But that’s not 
the kind of swells I mean, Jackie. Swells are 
rich, grand, fine folks, with good clothes and 
pockets full of money, and big dinners every 
day.” 

“You and me and Gran ain’t swells, then,” 
said Jackie wistfully, as she limped on in her 
little broken shoes at Joe’s side. 

“Whew! no, I should rather say not! But 
there’s no telling where we may work up, 
Jackie,” continued Joe, cheerfully. “There 
was a picture in the paper the other day of a boy 
like me that used to sell papers on the street 
corner, where he now owns everything in sight, 
skyscrapers and all. I may be driving you 
around in a cushioned carriage yet, like the 
lovely lady we saw a while ago. Gee ! she was 
a beauty, wasn’t she, Jackie? Talk about 


22 


JACKIE S HOME 


swells ! They were the real sort. Why, when 
she looked out of the carriage window she just 
scattered summer-time out in the street!’’ 

“Yes,” said Jackie. “I smelt the flowers. 
O Joe, I’d like to be a swell like that! And 
she talked so — so nice,” added Jackie, with a 
little sigh. “I never heard anybody talk so 
nice before. She said ‘dear.’ I like that word, 
don’t you, Joe^” And the girl repeated it 
softly. 

“Well, not always,” answered Joe, cau- 
tiously. “When it means a nice little girl like 
you, Jackie, it’s all very well; but when it 
means bread and meat and sausages, it ain’t a 
good word at all. You and me don’t want any- 
thing ‘deaf about them. And here’s old 
Dutchy’s shop now. We’ll see what ten cents 
will get.” And Joe led Jackie into the little 
comer grocery, and began to bargain in a shrewd 
business way that argued well for the sky- 
scrapers to come. 

“A stale loaf, Dutchy. I’m not paying two 
cents extra for your soft baked stuff. Three 
of them sausages. Not that one you’re taking 


JACKIE S HOME 


23 


down, — no, siree! I can see the mould on it 
from here. You’re not going to poison this 
family with your ‘left-overs.’ One of them 
buns.” The purchaser looked critically in the 
glass case that held these luxuries. “And see 
you shake plenty of sugar on it, Dutchy. Fine 
tea — none of your blackberry leaves, but the 
real thing out of that black box with the Chinese 
pigtails curly-cuing over it,” continued this 
critical customer, pointing to a tea chest. 

“You vouldn’t vant a bottle of wine maybe, 
and some of dese grapes and oranges thrown 
in^” asked Dutchy, with what was meant to be 
a sarcastic grin. 

“Oh, yes!” said little Jackie, eagerly. “Joe, 
get grapes and oranges too, please — real sucky 
oranges like you brought when I was sick, Joe.” 

“Not to-night,” said Joe, regretfully but 
resolutely. “You see, we ain’t struck the mil- 
lionaire line yet, Jackie, as this dunderhead 
Dutchy well knows. Oranges is only for sick 
girls, Jackie, that can’t eat things like — like the 
sausages and buns we’ve got here. Oranges 
Pooh ! They would be no good for supper at 


24 


JACKIWS HOME 


all. So come along. Just climb up on that 
barrel and then on my shoulder. You can 
ride pickaback home now. It is too dark for 
any one to see.” 

And in her glee at this proposition, Jackie 
quite forgot her longed-for oranges; and, climb- 
ing on Joe’s sturdy shoulder, was trotted “picka- 
back” through the darkening streets that 
stretched bare and bleak, by commons and waste 
places, where dim lights were blinking in the 
windows of little cabins and shanties that stood 
here and there by the way. 

Here most of the people built their own 
houses of old boards and boxes, or anything that 
came handy; for “Squatter Town” did not be- 
long to any one in particular. The heirs of the 
wealthy people who had lived in the great 
house on the hill had been quarrelling over the 
land for nearly twenty years; and no lawyer — 
though at least a dozen had grown rich over it — 
had been able to settle the dispute yet. Mean- 
time the goats and pigs and chickens and chil- 
dren roved and roosted and scratched and fought 
at will; and Squatter Town was “home” to 


JACKIE’S HOME 


25 


a score or more families, whom no one troubled 
for taxes or water rates or rent. It had been 
‘‘home” to Joe and Jackie for the last four 
years. So when Jackie’s “horsy” pranced up 
a steep bank to-night, and tumbled her off at a 
rickety old shanty with a stovepipe sticking out 
of the roof for a chimney, and the broken win- 
dows stuffed with rags of various hues, there was 
only one fear to mar her content. 

“Oh, I’m afraid Gran will beat me for run- 
ning away, Joe !” she said, with a piteous little 
shiver. 

“Don’t you fret about that,” said Joe. “I’m 
here to stand by you, Jackie. The old lady 
knows Sandy Joe.” 

He pushed open the door as he spoke (locks 
and bolts were needless appurtenances in Squat- 
ter Town), and the two children stumbled for- 
ward into the room, where there was no sign of 
light or life. 

“Gran!” called Joe cautiously. “Gran, are 
you here*?” He took a match from the box in 
his pocket, and, striking it into flame, held it up 
and looked around. “Gran !” he called again. 


26 


JACKIE S HOME 


‘'Gee whiz, this is luck, Jackie! She is out.” 

“And she will come home too sleepy to scold, 
won’t she, Joe*?” said Jackie, nestling down on 
a ragged old couch in the comer; while Joe lit 
a tin lamp that flung a sickly light over the dis- 
ordered room, where pots, pans, and dishes were 
scattered in reckless confusion. 

“It looks as if she might,” answered Joe, who 
understood better than poor little Jackie what 
Gran’s “sleepiness” meant. “But just now it’s 
up to us to get to housekeeping, midget. You 
keep that shawl around you while I scare up 
some wood for a fire.” 

And while Jackie drew up her little frozen 
feet under the coverlet, Joe stepped to the old 
“lean-to” back of the house and wrenched off 
half a dozen boards of the rotten walls. In a 
few minutes a fire was crackling cheerfully in 
the stove; the smoking lamp was trimmed into 
cheery glow; the room was whisked into some 
sort of order; and poor little Jackie’s chilled, 
fearful heart stirred into childish light and life. 
She flung away the old shawl and hopped from 
the couch — a pretty little figure in spite of her 


JACKIE S HOME 


27 


rags and tatters, with the soft waves of dark 
hair falling to her slender waist, and her brown 
eyes dancing gladly under their arching 
brows. 

“Now I’ll set the table, Joe, while you cook 
supper.” 

“Set the table !” grinned Joe. “Gee, we are 
getting grand ! Where did you ever see a table 
set, Jackie*?” 

“Over at Molly Bryan’s,” answered Jackie, 
as she fluttered round, picking up bits of broken 
chinaware. “They’ve got the house at the cor- 
ner. It used to be the stable, but Mrs. Biy^an 
pays rent for it — Molly says four dollars a 
month — so she can have room to dry her 
clothes. She’s got it fixed up fine, with beds 
and chairs and tables. And she’s got a goat 
that gives milk, and chickens, and a dog that 
doesn’t bite. And Molly took me in to supper 
one evening, and there was a white cloth on the 
table, and cup)s with red flowers, and bread all 
cut smooth on a plate; and we had hot mush 
with molasses on it. It was very nice. I wish 
Gran would set a table too, Joe. I’ll show you 


28 


JACKIE S HOME 


how nice it looks,” continued Jackie, as she 
dragged an old rickety little stand to the fire, 
covered it with a clean newspaper, and put 
some cracked plates and two broken teacups 
carefully in place. “Now, there’s a plate for 
the sausage and a saucer for the bun.” 

“Why, that’s what I call a real swell layout,” 
said Joe, his eyes twinkling. “It almost comes 
up to our newsboys’ Christmas dinner, Jackie. 
Just wait till I give these sausages a little 
frizzle, and we’ll pitch in.” 

“Oh, but you mustn’t say ‘pitch in,’ Joe,” 
corrected Jackie. “Molly Bryan says ‘grace.’ ” 

“She does!” exclaimed Joe, staring. “Gee! 
they had a preacher to do that at the newsboys’ 
dinner.” 

“Molly does it too,” said Jackie, with con- 
scious pride in her new friend. “Her mother 
said: ‘Wait now until Molly says grace.’ 
And they all sat still, even the baby; and Molly 
said it fine. She learned how at Sunday-school. 
She said she’d take me there some day, if I could 
get something to wear besides Gran’s old shawl. 
The girls would laugh if I came in that.” 


JACKIWS HOME 


29 


‘'Pd like to catch any boys laughing!” said 
Joe, his brow darkening. “Pd settle them 
mighty quick. The trouble is with girls you 
can’t fight it out. But here’s the sausage done 
to a turn, midget; and you can cut the bread 
smooth now, and we’ll have a real swell time.” 

“Can’t I say grace first, like Molly does^” 
asked Jackie, anxious to have the “set” table 
complete. 

“Go ahead !” replied Joe grimly, as he dished 
the smoking sausage. 

And Jackie, who had never been taught bless- 
ing or prayer, folded her tiny hands and tried 
to repeat Molly’s grace : 

“Bless us — ^bless us — O Lord, and — and — O 
Joe, I can’t remember the rest !” 

“Well, I reckon that’s enough for a spread 
like this,” said Joe. “Start off on the sausage 
now while it’s hot. It looks fine.” 

And they drew up two old broken chairs to 
Jackie’s “set” table, and feasted as happily as 
the little brown sparrows picking their scant 
fare in the wintry wastes without. 

“Oh, I wish Gran would go out like this every 


30 


JACKIE S HOME 


night, don’t you, Joe?” said Jackie, as she lin- 
gered delightfully over the sugar- topped bun, 
which Joe would not hear of dividing. ‘‘Grans 
are not like mothers, are they, Joe? Little 
Nell Bryan cries if her mother goes out at night 
to church. Did I ever have a mother, Joe?” 

“Gee, yes ! Everybody has a mother.” 

“A real mother, Joe, like Mrs. Bryan?” 
queried Jackie, pausing midway through her 
sugar-topped bun. 

“I can’t say what she was like,” replied Joe, 
doubtfully; “but you had one sure.” 

“Gran says I’m a foundling, and, if I’m not 
good, she will put me in the asylum where I be- 
long,” continued Jackie. “Oh, I don’t want to 
go to the asylum ever, Joe !” 

“And you shan’t while my money is running 
this family,” said Joe, decidedly. “Foundling 
or not, you are going to be my little sister al- 
ways and forever, Jackie; and, if Gran don’t 
look out. I’ll clip off with you and give you to 
some nice woman that will take care of you 
right. I can pay for it. I’m making three 
dollars a week now, and can pay all cash down. 


JACKIE^S HOME 


31 


So don’t you worry about no asylum, Jackie. 
I’ll look out for that — ^hello!” as Jackie 
dropped her treasured bun and made a sudden 
spring from her rickety chair to his side. 
“What’s the matter, midget^” 

“O Joe, didn’t — didn’t you hear?” she said 
tremulously. 

“No. What — where?” he asked, putting his 
strong arm around the terrified child. 

“Out — out there at the window — the door — 
oh, I don’t know where it is!” sobbed Jackie. 
“Listen, Joe!” And she clung to him wildly, 
as a long, low, piteous moan came faintly from 
the darkness without. “Oh, don’t open the 
door, Joe!” cried poor little Jackie in terror. 
“Don’t let it in, please !” 

“I must, Jackie,” said Joe, though his ruddy 
young face paled as the sound again swelled 
forth through the silence. “That — why, that’s 
something human — crying for help.” 


CHAPTER III 


GRAN 

J OE flung open the door as he spoke, and 
peered out into the darkness, trying to lo- 
cate the sound which had startled Jackie. The 
low moan came again almost at his feet; and 
there, just near the broken doorstep, lay a 
huddled figure. 

“Gran!” said Joe, as he bent closer to it. 
“Don’t be afraid, Jackie. It’s only Gran. 
She’s been drinking again. Here, old woman !” 
He shook the bent shoulder gently. “Gran, 
you mustn’t lie down here, or you’ll get your 
death. Gran, I say, get up !” 

Another long, low moan was the only answer. 
Jackie burst into a childish wail. In all her 
lifelong experience — and it had not been a 
pleasant one — she had never seen Gran like 
this. 

“Get up,” repeated Joe, with a little rougher 
shake. “Wake up and get up. Gran!” Still 

32 


GRAN 


33 


no answer. “Pll have to get her in somehow, 
or she’ll freeze to death,” said Joe, desperately. 

‘ J’ll run round and get Ned Bryan to help 
you, Joe,” said Jackie, tremulously. 

‘‘No, don’t you,” answered Joe, firmly. 
“We don’t want to give the old lady away 
to respectable neighbors that are nice to you, 
Jackie. Just lift her feet a bit, and I’ll try to 
get her in.” 

And Jackie, still shaking with cold and ter- 
ror, lifted Gran’s feet as best she could; while 
Joe, who did not have his square shoulders and 
strong arms for nothing, managed to haul the 
old woman over the low step and across the 
threshold into the lamp-lit room, where he got 
her safe on the ragged couch. The black cloak 
she had wrapped around her head and shoulders 
had fallen off, and the light showed a hard, old, 
wrinkled face, without a good or tender line. 
It showed something more to Sandy Joe’s quick 
eye. 

“My! her hair is all full of blood!” he said, 
in a startled voice. “She must have struck the 
edge of the step, I guess,” 


34 


GRAN 


“O Joe, maybe she’s killed like my poor 
dear Kitty!” whispered Jackie, whose one pet 
had met a tragic fate a few months before in 
an encounter with a tinker’s dog. 

“Pooh, no!” said Joe, lightly, “though if it 
wasn’t for you I’d call some of the Bryans. 
They might not want their girls to be so 
friendly with you if they saw Gran like this. 
It don’t matter much about boys, but a little 
girl has to be as respectable as she can; so I’ll 
just let the old lady sleep it off, as she has done 
many a time before. But first I reckon we 
ought to tie up that cut on her head,” added 
Joe, who had not done business at a street cor- 
ner for eighteen months without learning some- 
thing about “first aid” to the injured in any 
kind of fray. “Look around, Jackie, and see 
if you can find me a nice, soft rag.” 

Jackie looked around hopelessly. Nice, soft 
things were not much in Gran’s household line. 

“There’s nice rags in that old trunk there, 
Joe,” she whispered; “but Gran said if I ever 
touched them she would skin me alive.” 

“I’ll risk the skinning,” replied Joe, turn- 


GRAN 


35 


ing to an old haircloth-covered trunk that stood 
in a corner of the room, its lid lightly fastened 
down by a rusty nail. 

The would-be surgeon opened it with a jerk. 
It held queer odds and ends of every kind gath- 
ered in Gran’s long and varied career; but a soft 
white roll in the corner caught Joe’s eye. He 
seized upon it at once, and, breaking the string 
that confined it, shook out the contents. Here 
were soft white rags indeed, but rags frilled and 
laced and fashioned into dainty shapes that 
made Sandy Joe stare. 

“Why — why, they’re — they’re baby clothes, 
Jackie !” 

The little girl bent forward, her long soft 
hair falling over the dainty frock. 

“O Joe, yes, dear, lovely little baby clothes ! 
Look at the frills and the lace and the teeny- 
weeny buttons! Mrs. Bryan’s baby hasn’t 
anything so pretty ! And there’s a little white 
coat, too. O Joe, you’re not going to tear up 
those?” 

“No, I’m not,” answered Joe, who was still 
staring at the dainty little garments he held in 


36 


GRAN 


his outstretched hand. “And, my, if there ain’t 
gold pins in them too, Jackie !” He turned the 
little frock he held to the light, and showed 
three delicate little fasteners connected with a 
slender chain. “And there’s letters on them!” 
he continued, peering at the tiny monogram on 
the gold pins, “letters all twisted together. It 
looks like a J and a T or an H. Golly! I 
wonder where Gran got hold of swell fixings 
like these?” 

“And, oh, how soft and nice the little coat 
is!” said Jackie, rapturously. “Just let me 
hold it for a minute, Joe !” And she took the 
little silken-lined thing and laid her cheek on 
its soft warm folds. “Oh, I wish I could keep 
it, Joe!” 

“You’re just hard up for a pet, Jackie. I’ll 
try to find another kitten for you to-morrow; 
for we’ll have to put these things back before 
Gran opens her eyes and sees us rummaging in 
her trunk.” 

“Oh, yes, yes, put them back quick!” whis- 
pered Jackie in alarm. “Don’t tie up her head 
at all, Joe. Let her stay asleep.” 


GRAN 


37 


“Guess we might as well,” replied Joe; “for 
we are short on hospital supplies sure. And 
while the old woman seems pretty easy, Pll get 
out my thread and mend that shoe of yours, 
Jackie. Take it off and snuggle down there 
by the fire, and I’ll show you what a cobbler I 
am. I’ve got an old boot, that I picked up on 
an ash pile yesterday, that is just what we 
need.” 

And while Jackie snuggled up to the fire, 
with her little foot tucked under her ragged 
skirt, Joe got the old boot he had stowed away 
in a comer; and, diving into his pocket, ex- 
tracted from a varied emergency collection of 
rusty nails, twine, buttons, and so forth, a 
coarse needle stuck in a skein of black thread. 

“Tell me a story while you mend my shoe* 
won’t you, Joe*?” coaxed the little girl, as her 
companion, with the aid of a jackknife, pro- 
ceeded to cut his patch. 

“Sure ! I almost forgot the story,” said Joe. 
“The paper is in my pocket, and I sort of 
spelled it out while I was waiting at the office 
this morning. It’s a picture paper Tim Mona- 


38 


GRAN 


ghan gave me. You can look at it, and I’ll 
try to tell you what it is all about.” 

Joe made a dive into another pocket and 
brought out a badly torn and crumpled pic- 
torial page. Jackie smoothed it out with eager 
hands. 

“The fairy story is on the other side,” said 
Joe. “Turn over, Jackie.” 

“Oh, but — but ain’t these fairies, too*?” 
asked Jackie, pointing to a winged group in the 
picture. 

“No,” replied Joe: “those are angels.” 

“They look like fairies,” said Jackie, doubt- 
fully. 

“Oh, but they ain’t the same at all!” said 
Joe, as he laboriously drew his rusty needle 
through the shoe-leather. “Angels are a great 
deal better than fairies, Jackie. They don’t 
fool away their time monkeying and dancing 
and swinging on cobwebs, but are real use- 
ful.” 

“Then tell me a story about angels, Joe,” 
pleaded Jackie, softly. 

“I can’t say that I know any stories about 


GRAN 


39 


them,” said Joe, reflectively. “You see — 
angels — angels are true, Jackie.” 

“Oh, are they? And did you ever see one, 
Joe?” asked Jackie, with wide-stretched eyes. 

“No, but Pve heard about them — lots of 
things,” replied Joe, stitching industriously as 
he spoke. “Jim Monaghan was sick Christ- 
mas, and Tim gave me his ticket and took me 
in to the Christmas Tree at his church. It was 
fine ! There were all sorts of good things, and 
nice gloves and scarfs and warm socks for pres- 
ents. I didn’t want to take anything, but the 
preacher — or priest they called him — said that 
it was all right even if I wasn’t no church mem- 
ber, and he handed me out a pair of gloves with 
the rest. And then he told us about angels — 
how they lived up in heaven, and God sent them 
on messages ; and how on Christmas night they 
just filled the skies with singing and music, 
a-telling folks how God had come a little baby 
to live on earth. And then,” said Joe, pausing 
to rethread his needle — “then he told us some- 
thing I never heard before, though I’ve been 
round to Methodists’ and Baptists’ Christmas 


40 


GRAN 


Trees. He said that every child had an angel 
to look after it, and stay at its side night and 
day, and keep it from harm. Guardian angels 
he called them. And I tell you they’ve got a 
job watching some of the boys I know, I 
should think they’d give up and go back to the 
sky. But with little girls” (Joe turned his 
eyes on Jackie) “it’s different, as I told Tim 
when we come out. I don’t ask no guardian 
angels myself, but I’d like to think there was 
one watching over you when I’m not around. 
And then I began to think how you had skipped 
out safe when the stove turned over last winter, 
and the ash cart rolled over you without giving 
you a scratch, and you tumbled off a twenty- 
foot bank and landed in a soft snowdrift in- 
stead of breaking your back or your neck. It 
looks as if some one was taking care of you sure. 
There now !” Joe dexterously bit off his thread 
with his sharp white teeth. “Your shoe is 
done, and almost as good as new. Gee whiz! 
poor little midge ! She is sound asleep !” 

And, with a gentleness that many a more for- 
tunate big brother might have copied, Joe lifted 


GRAN 


41 


the light little figure from the floor, where 
Jackie had nodded off in perilous neighborhood 
to the rickety stove, and placed her on the little 
pallet in the corner, covering her up with a 
ragged patchwork quilt several times folded, 
and then returned to keep watch over the fire 
and Gran; for more than once the stove had 
been upset by the old woman after an “evening 
out.” 

Sandy Joe had come into Gran’s care about 
five years ago. His father, another Joe Darn- 
ley, a wild, reckless young fellow, had been the 
old woman’s only son and the idol of her fierce, 
jealous heart. She had been furious at his 
marriage, and would have nothing to do with 
the young wife, who, she declared, had stolen 
her boy. So Joe’s early days had been spent 
in a little seaport town, where his father found 
and lost jobs with painful regularity, spent the 
intervals at saloons and corner groceries, leav- 
ing the real struggle of life to the quiet little 
pale-faced mother, who, never very strong, had 
given way under the double strain and slipped 


42 


GRAN 


hopeless and broken-hearted into an early grave. 
Then, the gentle obstacle between them being 
removed, Mr. Darnley renewed friendly rela- 
tions with his old mother, dropped nine-year-old 
Joe in her care, with promises of generous re- 
mittances for his support, shipped before the 
mast, and was heard of no more. 

Joe had found two-year-old Jackie, with 
four or five little ones of the same age, toddling 
about the poor but decent cottage where Gran 
was making a modest if somewhat precarious 
livelihood by nursing ‘‘in” instead of “out.” 
But after the disappearance of her son. Gran 
had fallen into evil ways. One by one the 
children were removed from her care, until only 
Joe and little brown-eyed Jackie remained to 
follow the down grade of the old woman’s for- 
tunes, which had landed them at last in the 
shanty where Joe was keeping his anxious vigil 
to-night. 

The cares of life usually sat very lightly upon 
Joe. He had been used to poverty and want 
from his cradle, so that he scarcely felt their 
sharp pinch. But to-night, as he thrust an- 


GRAN 


48 


other rotten board into the old stove, and leaned 
back in the broken chair before the fire, the 
young face framed by the sandy curls was un- 
usually thoughtful. Perhaps it was the heavy 
breathing of the old woman behind him; per- 
haps it was the sight of Jackie’s “set table” and 
broken little shoe; but Joe felt his responsi- 
bility as head of the house unusually weighty 
to-night. 

“That poor little midget there does have a 
tough time sure; and she is so cute and pretty 
and — and — ” (Joe paused in his reflections for 
the right word) “sort of ladyfied, it seems a 
shame she can’t be kept nice and right. Gran 
is no more fit to raise a little girl than an old 
crow to raise a canary bird; and she’s getting 
worse and worse every day. If, as that 
preacher said, Jackie’s got an angel watching 
her, I’d surely like him to give me a tip some- 
how what to do for her myself.” 

It was a queer sort of a prayer, but it came 
straight from Joe’s honest heart, and surely 
the watching angel heard. 


CHAPTER IV 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


SUDDEN sound made Joe turn with a start. 



jL \ Gran was sitting up on her ragged couch, 
with flushed face and wild, staring eyes. 

“Jackie!” she called sharply. “Jackie, 
where are you, you little beggar^’ They’ve 
come for you at last — at last ! They’ve come !” 

At the sound of Gran’s voice suddenly call- 
ing for Jackie, Joe sprang up and looked 
around, exclaiming: 

“Who has come?” 

But the door was tight shut. There was no 
stranger near. Gran, seated straight up on the 
couch, was staring wildly at the blank wall be- 
fore her. 

“It will be a thousand dollars down,” she 
went on shrilly, — “a thousand dollars! She 
has cost me a deal, to say naught of the work 
and the worry. A thousand dollars down! 


44 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


45 


I’ve been waiting for it long, and I’ll take never 
a cent less. A thousand dollars down, and 
then I can make a man of Joe’s boy.” 

“What are you talking about, Gran^” asked 
Joe, drawing near the old woman. 

“You keep out of this !” she replied fiercely. 
“I don’t want none of your meddling. It’s 
none of your business from first to last — d’ye 
hear^? It’s mine — all mine. — A thousand dol- 
lars down, and then you can have the child to 
do what you will.” 

“Gee whiz!” exclaimed Joe, appalled. “If 
she ain’t a dreaming of selling Jackie out and 
out! — Gran, Gran, I say, wake up — wake up! 
There ain’t anybody here but me.” 

But Gran kept on in her shrill colloquy with 
her invisible visitor on the blank wall. 

“No, I ain’t starved her, I ain’t beat her. If 
she’s ragged and dirty, why didn’t you send 
money to buy clothes? Where could I get her 
dresses and shoes to wear all these years? I’d 
have sent her to the asylum years ago only I 
was a-waiting for this. I have kept the frock 
and the coat and the gold pins, when I might 


46 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


have sold them for food and drink. Pve got 
them safe. You can see them if you want to 
when you’ve paid me for the child. It’s a thou- 
sand dollars down !” 

‘'Oh, stop, Gran!” said Joe, for he was 
roused into righteous wrath at this cold-blooded 
bargaining for his little playmate, even if it 
were only bargaining in a dream. “You don’t 
know what you are talking about. You ain’t 
going to sell Jackie for one thousand dollars 
while I’m around — ^no, nor for ten thousand 
neither. Gran.” 

“Turning against me, are you?” said the 
old woman, showing her long yellow teeth. 
“Turning against me, just like your father did! 
You just go away, and leave me alone. This 
here is my business, you ungrateful boy ! This 
is my affair, that I’ve been waiting to settle 
this many a year. It was of you that I have 
been thinking — how I’d send you to school and 
make a gentleman of you. And now it’s 
keeping me out of my money you’d be, you 
young fool ! Listen ! She with the black eyes 
can pay. I knew she was playing some dark 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


47 


trick with the child. I could see it in her face 
— aye, aye, old Madge Darnley could see! 
Little she cared whether it lived or died, and her 
husband cared less. They’d leave it while they 
went to France for a year, and paid me three 
hundred dollars down; and the fear and fright 
all the while in their faces, and the lies on their 
trembling tongues; and the child, half dead 
with the dope they had given it, couldn’t cry! 
Aye, you know it well — you know it well!” 
continued Gran, her voice rising sharply as she 
again addressed her imaginary visitor. “It 
was all lies you told me about the child, and you 
know it well.” 

Joe was listening in bewilderment, with blue 
eyes wide open, and sharp ears that did not 
miss a word. It was Jackie’s story Gran was 
telling. It was Jackie who had worn the 
pretty frilled dress and the soft coat and the 
gold pins, and who had been left in Gran’s 
care by a black-eyed lady, who had doped her 
so she couldn’t cry. Poor J ackie ! 

As Joe thought of her his heart seemed to 
swell so big with pity and tenderness and hot 


48 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


boyish wrath that it fairly rose in his throat. 
To leave a tiny little girl, in a pretty frock 
with gold pins, to Gran! 

“What’s her name, Gran?” he asked eagerly, 
humoring the old woman’s raving. “I’ll get 
her for you if you tell me her name.” 

“Her name?” echoed the old woman. “It 
was no true name she gave me, I know. It was 
Bonny the baby called her; it was all she could 
say — Bonny, I remember well. Eh, Mrs. 
Bonny, I’ve been looking for you long. Now 
you’ll have to pay, I tell you — ^you’ll have to 
pay !” Gran’s shrill voice broke and she began 
to gasp for breath. 

“Jackie!” shouted Joe in alarm, as the old 
woman fell back on her pillow, struggling and 
choking. “Wake up, wake up !” 

The little girl, half asleep, started up from 
her pallet at the call. 

“Jackie, run right in to Mrs. Bryan’s and 
tell somebody to come here quick ! Gran’s got 
a fit. Quick, Jackie, quick!” 

Jackie gave one wild look of terror at the 
couch, and was out of the house at a bound. 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


49 


The rest of the night seemed like a strange, con- 
fused dream to Joe. Good Mrs. Bryan, a stout, 
motherly woman, came hurrying in; one or two 
other neighbors followed. There was a be- 
wildering buzz and clatter of tongues, until the 
‘"poor” doctor arrived on the scene, and gave 
brief but imperative orders. Gran must be 
taken to the hospital at once. There was some 
fracture of the skull. 

And, though it was the dead of a winter 
night, all Squatter Town was up and out when 
the big white ambulance drove up to the side 
of the road; and Gran, wrapped in every quilt 
and blanket she owned, was carried by four 
stout men down the steep bank, placed on the 
mattress within the vehicle, and borne away. 

“They’re taking her to her death, poor crea- 
ture !” said the sympathetic Mrs. Bryan, with a 
nod. “She’ll never get over it. The doctor 
said as much. She’s going to her death, and 
it’s small loss she’ll be — God forgive me for 
saying so!” murmured the good woman, as she 
turned back into Gran’s house to straighten 
things up a bit before she went to her own do- 


50 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


main. “Of all the dens Pve ever seen this is 
the worst. Ah, Joe, is that you?” Mrs. 
Bryan’s tone changed cheerily as she caught 
sight of the boyish figure sitting in silence by 
the rusty stove. “Keep up your heart, Joe 
dear !” And the speaker laid a motherly hand 
on Joe’s shoulder. “It may not be so bad with 
the poor old woman, after all.” 

“Yes, it is, Mrs. Bryan,” said Joe, in a 
choked voice; for deep if needless remorse was 
rending his boyish heart. “I — I was such a 
stupid dumbhead, Mrs. Bryan, not to tie up her 
head or call anybody to help her.” 

“And — and why didn’t you, Joe?” asked 
Mrs. Bryan, a little startled at this confession. 

“I was ashamed,” said Joe, with grim 
honesty. “I thought she had been drinking, 
and I didn’t like to have other folks see her so 
down and out. Didn’t care for myself, but — 
but — Joe swallowed the big lump rising in 
his throat — “I was afraid you might all ‘cut’ 
poor little Jackie if you saw Gran drunk.” 

“Oh, you poor child !” said the good woman. 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


51 


with all the warmth of a mother confessor. 
“Sure rd never be thinking the likes of that! 
Gran isn’t the only old woman Fve seen take a 
drop or two too much, Joe. When one is old 
and cold it’s a sore temptation, lad. As for 
Jackie — God bless her! — there isn’t a prettier 
little darling in the town. My Molly loves 
her as if she were her sister.” 

“Then take her — take her for Molly’s sister, 
Mrs. Bryan.” There was a queer little catch in 
Joe’s voice, and all the pity and tenderness and 
anxiety roused by this dark night looked out 
from his pleading eyes. “Take her, please, for 
your little girl, too — won’t you, Mrs. Bryant” 
“Is it I, Joe dear*?” exclaimed the good 
woman. “You see, I have four of my own, 
and it’s all a poor widow can do, washing and 
ironing, to keep the roof over them now.” 

“I’ll pay for her,” replied Joe, eagerly. 

“You poor lad ! And do you think I’d take 
the bit and sup out of your own mouth, child*? 
No, I wouldn’t. Now listen to me. The 
home for poor little Jackie is neither with you 


52 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


nor with me, but with the good Sisters at St. 
Vincent’s. There she’ll be fed and clothed, 
poor lamb, and taken care of, in the good God’s 
name, as she never was taken care of before.” 

“The asylum!” said Joe in a choked voice. 
“Oh, not the asylum, Mrs. Bryan !” 

“And why not?” asked Mrs. Bryan. 
“There isn’t a better place in all the world for 
the motherless orphan, Joe. Haven’t you seen 
them walking out in their nice warm coats and 
hats, and the Sisters watching and caring for 
them?” 

“I know — I know! But, Mrs. Bryan, it 
would break her heart — poor little Jackie’s 
heart. She’s scared of the asylum. Gran has 
threatened her with it ever since she could walk ; 
and it was only this evening Jackie was talking 
about it, and telling me how afraid she was of 
being put there. I told her I’d never let her 
go, and I won’t,” said Joe, his young face set- 
tling into strangely resolute lines. “I can pay 
for her. I know a place where I can get three 
dollars a week and grub, and sleep under the 
counter. And if you won’t take Jackie for 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


53 


that, ril find some one else. It won’t cost 
three dollars a week to feed Jackie, I am sure.” 

“No, it wouldn’t, nor half that, the darling!” 
said the good woman, pitifully. “And she 
could sleep with Molly and Nora, where I’ve 
got her warm and snug now. And I wouldn’t 
like to have the little creature given up to some 
lazy good-for-nothing that you might pick up. 
So we’ll let Jackie stay for a while, anyway, 
lad.” 

And so it was settled; and, after a bit more 
straightening, the good mother went home to 
find her latest nursling tucked safely in bed be- 
tween Molly and Nora, her arms twined around 
Molly’s neck, her little face, even in sleep, 
wearing a happy, trustful smile. 

“The poor darling!” said the good mother. 
“Sure I’m foolish to listen to the lad, I know; 
but I’ll keep her for a while at least, with God’s 
help.” 

And Joe, with the help of the watching angel 
he had invoked, having done his best for Jackie, 
turned into his own room, which was little more 
than a shed whose gaping boards he had lined 


54 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


with papers to keep out the wind, and where a 
sack of straw covered with an old army blanket 
served as a bed. But shed and straw and 
blanket were clean and sweet; his few clothes 
hung neatly on nails on the wall ; the tin basin 
and broken-nosed pitcher were in place for his 
morning toilet. Joe could do nothing with 
Gran’s domain, but his own was kept accord- 
ing to the teaching of his gentle mother to her 
nine-year-old boy long ago. Much more she 
must have taught even in those early days 
to have made our Sandy Joe the brave, bold, 
tender-hearted fellow he was. Too brave and 
tender-hearted to sleep to-night, he lay awake in 
the darkness, thinking and planning as he had 
never had to think and plan before. 

He would go to old “Parley Voo’s” eating- 
house to-morrow. The grizzly old French- 
man had offered him a job two months ago, 
but then he had Gran and Jackie to look out 
for at night. Now — ^now a queer lump rose 
in Joe’s throat as he thought of his broken-up 
family. Well, he could help with the queer 
messes of frogs and turtles; he could eat the old 


A TERRIBLE NIGHT 


55 


Frenchman’s scraps; he could sleep under the 
counter ; and he could earn three dollars a week 
for little Jackie — ^Jackie, whose strange story 
he had heard to-night. 


CHAPTER V 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 

S ANDY Joe had secured his new job with 
difficulty. He had appeared at the queer 
little shop at the market corner at an unlucky 
moment. Old “Parley Voo” — or Monsieur 
Paravue, as he was more politely called by his 
compatriots — was in a state of “desolation” 
beyond English speech. The tenth of a series 
of young “diables Americains,” whom he had 
employed as gargons, had disappeared the night 
before with a huge basket of bonnes bouches 
intended for an elegant reception, and the un- 
fortunate Monsieur was hearing from the dis- 
appointed hostess in no very pleasant terms. 

“But, Madame, Madame, it was not my 
fault. I make the terrapin with my own 
hands. I kill him, I pick him, I stew him, I 
smother him well with all things good and 
fine, Madame. I assure you it was one fine 

56 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 57 


dish. And then I trust it to that villain, thief, 
rascal; and he — he — what you call it? — elope 
with it, Madame — elope with it, to Madame’s 
disappointment, to my dishonor, disgrace — 
but not to my fault,” concluded the old man, 
bowing his head and stretching out his hands 
pathetically, — ‘‘not to my fault !” 

“It u your fault, when you trust to dishon- 
est and unreliable help,” said the lady, sharply. 
“Your carelessness spoiled my entertainment, 
and you may be sure you will receive no orders 
from me again.” And the speaker swept out of 
the shop indignantly. 

“I am ruined, I am lost!” said the old man, 
clapping his hands to his head excitedly. 
“This will destroy me forever — forever!” 

“Pooh, no !” interposed a cheery voice at his 
side ; for Sandy Joe, waiting at the corner, had 
been a witness to the interview. “She can’t 
hurt you. Parley Voo. Old hens don’t do any- 
thing but cackle. First time she wants frog 
meat she’ll forget all about what she just said, 
and come back to you. Boy skipped, you say? 
Well, I’m looking for a job right now.” 


58 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


“You — you!” panted the old man, staring 
angrily at the speaker. “You will be thief, 
rascal, devil, like all the rest. Un, deux, cinq^, 
six, huit, dix, have I had, — all robbing, ruin- 
ing me. Vas-tu — leave ! Go — allez , — ^begone 
away! I will have none of you no more — 
none, none!” 

“But you’ll have to, you know,” said Sandy 
Joe, good-humoredly. “Fll wait until you cool 
off, and can talk business; for I want the job. 
Three dollars a week and grub — anything 
you’ve got round except frogs and mud- turtles. 
I’ll not bother them, you can bet ! Sleep there 
under the counter, and be on the jump when- 
ever you call. And I’m no thief either, though 
I don’t suppose you are taking my ‘say so’ for 
that. It ain’t no cinch, as you know. Parley 
Voo; but I’m willing to try it, if you want to 
give me the chance.” 

And something in Sandy Joe’s twinkling eyes 
and cheery voice seemed to strike through the 
clouds of old Parley Voo’s despair; and, after 
a great deal of excited discussion in very broken 
English, he was given the chance “to rob and 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 59 


min,” as the old Frenchman direfully prophe- 
sied, with the ten “diables Americains” that had 
preceded him. 

It was not much of a cinch, as Joe had fore- 
seen. Although the little shop at the corner 
‘‘put the best foot foremost” to the outside 
world, and the counter was covered with spot- 
less oilcloth, paper napkins in plenty, and the 
flowered dishes were gaily garnished with pars- 
ley and cress, there were dark depths behind, 
in which it would not have been wise for pa- 
trons to penetrate. There was a small stuffy 
kitchen, where old Parley Voo, in a white paper 
cap and apron, did wonderful things with bits 
and scraps that an American cook would not 
have looked at twice ; there was a tumble-down 
shed beyond, with tanks and tubs where frogs, 
turtles and terrapins awaited their doom ; 
there was a ragged-looking parrot that swung 
in a rusty cage and said bad words in French; 
and, last and worst of all, there was “La 
Vielle.” 

Whether La Vielle was wife, mother, grand- 
mother, or great-grandmother to Parley Voo, 


60 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


Joe was never able to tell. She was so old 
and withered and brown that fifty years more 
or less would not seem to count. She lived up 
a crooked pair of stairs, that led to an aparte^ 
merit where Joe was never allowed to penetrate ; 
and once a day she came hobbling down, lean- 
ing on a cane, to quarrel fiercely with old Par- 
ley Voo in shrill French, and to gather up all 
the loose change in sight. But she saw that 
the little cot under the counter had a warm 
blanket, and more than once she nodded her 
queer old bewigged head and threw a nickel 
to Joe as she clambered up the crooked steps. 

''She is one vat you call veetch,” said old 
Parley Voo to Joe, after one of those daily vis- 
its. "La Vielle will nevare, nevare die. She 
is one veetch.” 

And, though not wise in "witch’’ ways, Joe 
felt that perhaps Parley Voo was not far wrong. 

Meanwhile Gran lingered on in dull uncon- 
sciousness in the free ward of the great hos- 
pital; and little Jackie, happily domesticated 
in the Bryan household, was fairly reveling in 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 61 


delights she had never experienced in her brief 
years of remembrance. True, the Bryan es- 
tablishment consisted of only three rooms, and 
a shed in which the mother did the washing 
that supported her fatherless brood. But, after 
Gran’s menage^ what vistas of comfort and 
beauty those three rooms were to Jackie’s eager 
eyes! There were real beds, snowy and spot- 
less, with an iron crib for Baby Ann ; there were 
chairs with legs and seats; there was a table 
which, when not set in proper fashion for meals, 
was covered with a fringed red cloth ; there was 
a clock that ticked cheerily day and night. 
Most wonderful of all, there were pictures on 
the walls — pictures bought on instalment at 
sacrifices only God’s good angels knew: the 
Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, St. Patrick, Christ 
blessing little children — too gorgeous in hue, 
perhaps, for artistic tastes, but teaching lessons 
of faith, hope, and love, that many a master- 
piece fails to impart. 

What with all these attractions, with a 
friendly cat purring on the hearth rug, with 
rosy, rollicking Baby Ann to cuddle and 


62 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


squeeze, and Molly and Nora and little Pat, 
the three days since the night of Gran's acci- 
dent had been one long delight to Jackie — a 
delight she felt with a tremulous fear must 
soon have an end; it was altogether too good 
to last. There was only one shadow in this 
sunshine. Joe, big, cheery, tender Joe, was not 
here to share it — to enjoy the bright fire and 
the set table, the hot mush and milk, the cat, 
the goat, the baby — all the wonderful joys of 
this new life. 

She was thinking of Joe this morning as she 
sat on the rag rug before the stove that was 
glowing with ruddy light; for Mrs. Bryan was 
in the midst of her ironing. The room was a 
very grove of sweet-smelling linen, that hung 
airing on lines stretched from wall to wall — 
linen frilled and laced and embroidered; for 
the good laundress’ custom was of the best. 
Bright winter sunshine streamed through the 
four windows. The pictures shone out in all 
their glory. The clock ticked merrily. Molly 
and Nora were at school; little Pat, bundled 
up warm against the winter cold, was out coast- 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 63 


ing with the young Monaghans; Baby Ann 
had just rolled over on the rug in her morn- 
ing nap, and had been comfortably ensconced 
in her crib. It was a time for reflection; and 
Jackie, with her little patched toes curled up 
under her ragged frock, whose glaring deficien- 
cies were concealed for the present by the loan 
of Nora’s best ruffled apron, was thinking rather 
more seriously than the usual glad riot in the 
Bryan household permitted. 

‘‘Gran will come back soon now; won’t she, 
Mrs. Bryant” she asked gravely. 

“Sure if it’s God’s holy will, darling!” an- 
swered the good woman, evasively. 

“God’s holy will,” — it was the keynote of 
this humble household, to which all its simple 
music was attuned. Jackie had heard a great 
deal about God’s will during the last three days, 
and there was a puzzled look in the soft brown 
eyes lifted to her kind friend’s face. 

“Who is God, Mrs. Bryan*?” she asked 
softly. 

Mrs. Bryan’s iron poised, to the imminent 
danger of the dainty fabric beneath. 


64 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


“The Lord save us!” she gasped. “Jackie 
darling, did you never hear talk of God*?” 

“Sometimes when Gran was mad,” answered 
Jackie. “But I didn’t think He was real or 
true till I came here.” 

“You poor darling innocent!” said Mrs. 
Bryan, tenderly. “And how could you know 
anything good or holy with such an old repro- 
bate — ” The speaker remembered charity, 
and checked her indignant speech. “And, like 
as not,” she continued, “you never had the 
blessed water of baptism poured over you, 
Jackie ; and you’re a little haythen with all the 
rest. Well, with God’s help, Mary Bryan will 
see to that this day. You’ll not get out of my 
hands till you have a Christian soul — aye, and 
a Christian name, too. ‘Jackie’ indeed! It’s 
easily seen that old savage had no more regard 
for you than to call you like a dumb beast. 
Who ever heard of a decent child with a name 
like that? This very evening, when the chil- 
dren come home, I’ll take you up to St. Mar- 
tin’s to see Father More.” 

And, as good Mary Bryan never dallied on 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 65 


the path of duty, a new and wonderful ex- 
perience came to our little Jackie that after- 
noon. With Nora’s best coat enveloping her 
small figure, and Nora’s blue worsted hood tied 
over her brown hair, she was led to a great 
house, where, in a big room lined with books, 
there was the nicest gentleman she ever remem- 
bered to have seen — a tall, pleasant-faced gen- 
tleman, with half-grey hair, who shook hands 
with Mrs. Bryan and patted Jackie’s head 
kindly, while he listened to the brief, sad story 
the good woman told of the little girl’s life. 

“And you know nothing more than this — 
nothing of the child’s parentage*?” 

“Nothing, Father, except the poor darling 
has had no more care than a dumb beast; sure 
not as much as some of the beasts I have seen. 
It was a foundling that was left in her hands, 
the old woman used to say; and she was keep- 
ing her, expecting she might be called for. It 
was the old reprobate she was out and out, 
God forgive me! And if she gets over the 
trouble that’s on her now, she’ll take the child 
back again. But while Jackie is in my house 


66 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


I must do the best I can for her; so I brought 
her to you, Father, to ask you to baptize the 
poor innocent, and give her a Christian name, 
and a chance for heaven if the Lord sees fit to 
take her; for she’s a delicate bit of a creature, 
as you can see.” 

Father More put his hand under Jackie’s chin 
and lifted the shy, pretty little face so that the 
brown eyes met his own. 

“A delicate little creature indeed,” he said 
gently, “wonderfully delicate for such a life.” 

And then he bade Mrs. Bryan sit down ; and, 
taking his place in his own big chair, he drew 
Jackie to his side and talked to her in a way 
no one had ever talked to her before — wisely, 
kindly, simply enough to reach the little seven- 
year-old heart and mind. And when he had fin- 
ished, Jackie had learned beautiful, wonderful 
things about the good God, her Father in 
heaven who loved her so tenderly. 

“You would like to be God’s child, my dear 
little girl — the child of that good Father in 
heaven 

“Oh, yes, yes!” said Jackie softly, lifting 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 67 


her shining eyes to the priest’s face. “But I 
can’t — I can’t. Nobody wants me. Gran 
says I am only — only a bother. Maybe God 
don’t want me.” And she shook her pretty lit- 
tle head in a hopeless way that went to Father 
More’s big heart. 

“My poor, dear little girl ! Yes, God wants 
you — indeed He does.” And then, after an- 
other little talk, so tender and beautiful that 
Mrs. Bryan was reduced to sympathetic tears, it 
was decided that Jackie was to be brought to 
the church the very next day to receive condi- 
tional baptism. 

“And sure you’ll give her a Christian name. 
Father?” asked Mrs. Bryan anxiously. “Sure 
you couldn’t be baptizing her with such a name 
as Jackie!” 

“Well, scarcely,” said Father More, with a 
smile. “Choose her name yourself, my friend. 
It will be a good and holy one, I am sure. 
That is your privilege as godmother.” 

Great was the excitement in the Bryan house- 
hold that night when the coming event be- 
came known. Baby baptisms were happy and 


68 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


familiar affairs; but to have a walking, talk- 
ing, little girl led to the blessed font was a thing 
altogether unheard of and unrecorded in the 
family history. Jackie became an object of 
the most affectionate and breathless interest. 
Nora’s one white dress was brought out from 
its careful paper wrappings, and washed and 
ironed afresh for the great occasion. Nora’s 
shoes were borrowed and blacked to a shine. 
Molly’s white sash, the pride of her life, pur- 
chased by six weeks’ nursing of the tempestu- 
ous baby Monaghan, was offered to the little 
neophyte without a pang of hesitation. Then, 
when all these minor details were happily set- 
tled, Mrs. Bryan took down from the shelf, 
where it lay carefully protected from dust by 
three layers of tissue-paper, the great, gilt- 
clasped “Ursuline Manual” that had been her 
husband’s wedding gift, and proceeded to study 
the calendar for a fitting name, while the chil- 
dren crowded around in delighted interest. 

“Oh, I’d choose Regina Cecilia !” said Molly. 
“It sounds so grand.” 

“Katharine Loretto is much prettier,” de- 


A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 69 


dared Nora; “and it's holier, too; isn’t it, 
mother 

“Sure it’s not for us to judge betwixt the 
holy saints,” said the good mother, reprovingly. 
“You ought to have the instruction to know 
that, Nora. I’m thinking of Monica myself. 
It was my poor own mother’s name, and that 
of a great saint, besides. How would you 
like to be called Monica, Jackie dear?” 

“O Jackie, yes! Monica is a lovely name,” 
put in Molly, enthusiastically. “Mother, why 
didn’t you give me a fine name like that, instead 
of plain Mary Ann?” 

“Whisht ! I’m surprised and shocked at you, 
Molly Bryan! Where could I find you a 
sweeter or a holier name than that of the Queen 
of heaven and earth? And Jackie shall have 
that, too, if she wants it. We’ll call her 
Monica Mary. And here comes Joe to settle 
the matter. We’ll ask him.” 

And Joe, who just at that moment came in 
to look after his family, having an evening off 
from the frogs and turtles, stared in bewilder- 
ment at the chorus of information that greeted 


70 A HOME AND A NEW LIFE 


him. Jackie was to be baptized on the mor- 
row at the great marble church, with the tower 
and the bells; Jackie was to wear a beautiful 
white dress Mrs. Bryan had just ironed, the 
white silk sash that Molly proudly displayed, 
the new shoes with shining patent-leather toes; 
and Jackie must no longer be “Jackie,” like a 
dog or a monkey, but must have a beautiful 
name. 

“I’m thinking of Monica Mary,” said Mrs. 
Bryan; “but it’s for you to say the word, Joe. 
How do you like that name^” 

“Great!” said Joe breathlessly, feeling that 
here was “respectability” far beyond his wild- 
est hopes. “I never heard a finer name. I 
ain’t saying I won’t forget it sometimes myself, 
and call her Jackie; but she’ll be Monica Mary 
to every one else, or I’ll know the reason why.” 


CHAPTER VI 


UNDER THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 

I T had been a busy day with Mr. Phil Har- 
per. The cares of his great fortune usually 
sat very lightly upon him ; for he had been born 
to wealth and an honored name, so the mere 
matter of bonds and stocks and railroad shares 
had been disposed of with practised ease. But 
he had other business to settle to-day, — ^busi- 
ness he had shirked for years, as one shrinks 
from a rude touch on an open wound. He was 
obliged to discuss it now; and, seated in his 
lawyer’s office, was listening to the gentleman’s 
cool-headed professional advice. 

“My dear Harper, would it not be best to 
sell the place connected with so tragic an event 
and have done with it^? I had an offer of 
twenty thousand dollars for it yesterday. It 
seemed madness to refuse, and so I sent for you 

to talk the matter over. Twenty thousand dol- 
71 


72 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 


lars ! What possible good can it be to hold pos- 
session of Larchmont in its present condition 
any longer?” 

“None,” answered Mr. Harper, briefly. “I 
suppose, you are right, Benton ; and I ought to 
have sold and had the blackened ruins of my 
lost Eden razed to the ground long ago.” 

“Frankly, I think you ought,” observed Mr. 
Benton. “I was out there last week; the place 
is an eyesore in a beautiful and otherwise im- 
proving neighborhood. A perfect tangle of 
growth has closed around it. Shrubs, roses, 
vines, have all run wild; and, what is still 
worse, like all places with a tragic history, there 
is the usual foolish rumor that the ruin is 
haunted. It ought to be cleared away at once. 
Let me accept this twenty-thousand-dollar of- 
fer and be done with it.” 

“What does the purchaser propose to do with 
the property?” asked Mr. Harper, slowly. 
“Make it again — a home?” 

“Well, no, not exactly a home,” was the re- 
luctant answer. “As I understand, he is the 
agent of the proposed trolley line, who wants 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 73 


it as a sort of summer garden or pleasure park.” 

A fierce oath burst from Harper’s pale lips. 
“Summer garden! Pleasure park! Turn the 
ground made holy to me by my child’s ashes 
into a tramping place for beer-swillers and idle 
fools! Never while I live, Benton! I don’t 
see how you could think for one moment I 
would listen to such a proposition. Larch- 
mont a beer garden! Not if I were offered a 
million for it.” 

“My dear Harper, I did not say beer gar- 
den,” interposed the little lawyer, apologeti- 
cally. “A pleasure park for innocent recreation 
did not strike me as amiss. Still, as you feel 
this way, I will not urge the matter further. 
But I must add, in justice to other property 
holders in the neighborhood, something should 
be done with Larchmont.” 

“And something shall be done at once,” said 
Mr. Harper resolutely, as he rose from his chair. 
“I have been a weakling, a coward in the mat- 
ter, I must confess, Benton. I simply could 
not find the courage, the strength, after that 
first awful visit to look at the place again ; but 


74 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 


I will take the matter in hand myself now. Of 
one thing you can rest assured: Larchmont is 
not, and never will be, for sale. This offer has 
warned me that if I would keep it sacred ground 
it must be given into holy keeping forever.’’ 
And, his strong man’s voice still shaken with 
the emotion that mastered him, Philip Harper 
passed hurriedly out of the office without 
further adieux. 

“Very foolish sentiment, — exceedingly fool- 
ish,” commented the little lawyer with a shrug, 
as his wealthiest client disappeared. “But I 
suppose Mr. Philip Harper can afford senti- 
ment. I never could. It is altogether too ex- 
pensive a luxury.” And Mr. Benton turned 
back to his desk, while his late visitor kept on 
down the street, heedless for the moment 
whither, so fierce was the storm of feeling 
roused by the little lawyer’s words. 

Larchmont sold for a beer garden — a beer 
garden! Nay, even a pleasure park! The 
place made holy to him by so much happiness, 
such anguish, such blissful, torturing memories ! 
“Confound that old man Benton!” muttered 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 75 


the gentleman, savagely. “He has no more 
heart or soul than an Egyptian mummy. Sell 
Larchmont with the chance of such profana- 
tion as he suggests ! Sell the ground that holds 
the ashes of NelPs child! Great Heavens! 
ril see Father More to-morrow about putting 
something there that Nell would like: a church, 
a hospital, an orphanage or something. 
George ! that reminds me I came very near for- 
getting those two little ragamuffins. I must 
look them up at once.’’ 

And, stirred altogether out of his easy good- 
nature, the gentleman hurriedly retraced his 
steps to the neighborhood where he had bought 
his newspaper four days ago. The streets were 
filled with eager crowds hurrying homeward 
after the busy day ; shrill-voiced newsboys were 
darting hither and thither, shouting vocifer- 
ously. 

Mr. Harper, who retained only vague recol- 
lections of his late transaction with the young 
paper-seller, looked around him in bewilder- 
ment and was immediately besieged by eager 
vendors. 


76 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 

“Paper, sir, paper? Evening Times, sir? 
Here’s your Evening Journal, Herald? 
World?^* 

“Wait a bit, boys,” said the gentleman, after 
purchasing from a half dozen or so, and real- 
izing that any or all of them, as far as he re- 
membered, might be the one he sought. “Pm 
looking for a chap that I owe for a paper bought 
last Monday.” 

“’Twas me, sir! Me, me, me!” cried an 
eager chorus. 

“Oh, no!” said Mr. Harper, good-hu- 
moredly. “No such wholesale business as that, 
my boys; I haven’t any bee in my bonnet as you 
may think. Let me see : the fellow I want was 
about twelve or thereabouts, with reddish hair 
and a little sister.” 

“That was Sandy Joe,” piped up a small 
chap of ten from the background. 

“Shut up there ! It warn’t ; it was me.” A 
big, red-headed boy with shifty blue eyes 
jerked the little speaker aside and pushed his 
way to Mr. Harper. “It’s me you mean, sir. 
I sold you the paper — me and my little sis- 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 77 


ter, Julia Ann — a purty little girl, sir, with 
curls.” 

“Almost seven years old,” said Mr. Harper, 
trying to recall his wife’s description fully. 

“That’s her, just seven last birthday. She’s 
home to-day, sir, and sick — sick with the 
measles.” 

“Too bad, too bad !” said the gentleman, who 
was in the mood to soften to all seven-year-old 
woes, and felt that measles was an added re- 
sponsibility to his evening’s duty. “I hope you 
have a good doctor for the poor little girl.” 

“Doctor, sir ! No, we don’t have no doctor 
just for measles,” was the answer. 

“Oh, but you should, you mustT’ said the 
gentleman, determined to fulfil his signed and 
sealed contract even beyond the letter. “My 
wife took a fancy to the little girl, and asked 
me to stop this afternoon, and not only pay 
you the money I owe you with due interest” 
(and the speaker dropped a silver piece in Julia 
Ann’s brother’s outstretched hand), “but I give 
you this ten dollars to buy needed clothes for 
yourself and your little sister — ^something 


78 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 


warm and comfortable for you both; and, since 
she is sick, you must take this, too, and get her 
a doctor.” And Mr. Harper added another 
note to his donation, to the speechless bewilder- 
ment of the onlookers crowding around. 

“Thank you, sir!” gasped Julia Ann’s brother 
as soon as he could get wits and voice. “Thank 
you! ril — ril do it; I’ll do what you say. 
Thank you kindly, sir; I’ll get the doctor and 
the clothes and all. Bless the kind lady’s heart 
for her goodness!” 

“It’s a divvy — a divvy. Bill!” cried half a 
dozen breathless mates, crowding around Julia 
Ann’s brother as soon as Mr. Harper moved 
away. “We stood by and didn’t snitch. We 
all stood by you. How much^” 

“Fifteen,” was the triumphant answer, as 
Bill sidled up against the wall to count his un- 
looked-for gains. “Fifteen whole plunks and 
this ’ere shiner. I’ll give you one around, boys 
— all except Micky Fay. He don’t get noth- 
in’.” And Bill scowled darkly at the small 
truth-teller. 

“You’re a mean, lying cheat!” panted 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 79 


Micky, wrathfully. “You ain’t got no sister 
Julia Ann, Bill Butler. You ain’t got no sis- 
ter at all. And you didn’t sell that gentleman 
no paper neither. You know you didn’t. All 
that money was meant for Sandy Joe.” 

“Oh, was it?” said the bully, leaning over 
and catching the daring little speaker by the 
ear. “Say that again, and I’ll make you sorry 
for it. I’ll lay round the comer for you to- 
night and learn you what it is to snitch on Bill 
Butler.” 

“Ow — ow!” shrieked Micky, as his ear was 
wrung pitilessly by a cmel hand. 

“Pe'rlice, perlice, yer granny!” cried Bill 
scornfully, releasing his hold, while his crowd 
of toadies laughed approvingly. “Skip off, 
you little cock sparrow, and meddle with my 
business again if you dare. Come, boys. I’ll 
stand treat. We’ll have an all-round good 
time to-night on this.” 

“Well, that’s settled,” thought Mr. Harper 
with a sense of relief, as he called a cab at 
the next comer and was whirled away to his 


80 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 


hotel. “On closer acquaintance, I don’t think 
much of Nell’s little gentleman. A coarse, 
rough-looking chap that can’t look a man hon- 
estly in the eye. Ah, well! what can one ex- 
pect of a poor boy pitched into the fight for 
life at thirteen? I can go back with a clear 
conscience to Nell, and hope her tender heart 
will be at rest about these little beggars. If I 
could only soothe all other pain as easily ! But 
the wound is too deep, too deep for all my love 
to heal. Great Heaven ! if she had heard Ben- 
ton to-day I believe it would have killed her 
outright. I’ll see Father More about doing 
something with Larchmont the first thing to- 
morrow.” 

And so it happened that about ten o’clock 
next morning the gentleman presented himself 
at the pastoral residence attached to St. Mar- 
tin’s Church, and sent up his card to Father 
More. In a few minutes the good priest ap- 
peared and greeted his visitor cordially. 
Though not a Catholic himself, all Mr. Har- 
per’s sympathies and interest were in the great 
Church to which his idolized wife belonged. 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 81 


And Father More, who had married the young 
couple eight years ago and knew the sorrow that 
had darkened their lives, felt a truly paternal 
pity for them both. 

“My dear friend, good-morning, good-morn- 
ing! What lucky fate brings you to St. Mar- 
tin’s to-day And how is your good wife*? 
Better, I hope; stronger, happier*?” 

“Well, no. Father, I fear not,” was the sad 
answer. “But — but angelic in her patience 
and pain, as you know.” 

“Ah, yes, yes!” said Father More, softly. 
“We must wait. Help will come in God’s 
good time — help and healing. You came to 
see me about her, perhaps*?” 

“No, Father: about another matter this 
morning.” And the gentleman turned at once 
to the purpose of his visit. 

The priest listened sympathetically. 

“Good, very good,” he said. “To conse- 
crate this ruined home of yours to God’s serv- 
ice is truly a Christian act. It shows the faith 
is dawning in your soul, in your heart, my 
friend. I must talk it over at length with you 


82 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 


later. Just now’’ (Father More glanced at his 
watch) “I have a duty at church : a little child 
to baptize at eleven. It will not take half an 
hour. Can you wait for me^ There are some 
interesting pamphlets on the table; or perhaps 
you might like to look in at the church. I don’t 
think you have seen the memorial window, that 
was your good wife’s Christmas offering to St. 
Martin’s, since it has been put in place. It is 
much admired.” 

“No, I have not seen it. I will go with you 
and look at it,” said Mr. Harper with interest. 
And he followed Father More, who passed 
through a long corridor to a side door that 
led into the church. Good, honest gentleman 
that he was, Mr. Phil Harper was not much of 
a churchgoer; but this morning he paused in 
the centre aisle of St. Martin’s, struck with the 
solemn beauty of the church as it stretched be- 
fore him in noonday silence, flooded with col- 
ored light from the six great windows, the 
breath of incense from a morning Benediction 
lingering under its Gothic arches, the sanctuary 
lamp burning before the high altar with undy- 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 83 


ing ray. He was conscious of a strange, sweet 
thrill in his heart — as if, indeed, some blessing 
from an unseen Presence had fallen upon him 
— as he followed Father More, who, having put 
on his surplice and stole, proceeded to the bap- 
tismal font in the little side chapel where the 
sunbeams, streaming through the beautiful win- 
dow that had been Mrs. Harper’s gift, fell on 
the little group awaiting the priest’s coming. 

Good Mrs. Bryan, in her “widow’s mourn- 
ing” bonnet, brightened, as befitted the passing 
years, with a nodding cluster of purple flowers, 
and with Baby Ann in her maternal arms, was 
marshalling her domestic forces into the order 
demanded by the occasion. 

“Stand back there, Pat! Sure don’t you 
know it’s God’s holy house you are in^ Hold 
to his hand, Nora, and keep him easy. Whisht 
now, all of you ! And take Baby Ann, Molly 
darling; for here comes his reverence, and I 
must stand up with Jackie — I mean Monica 
Mary.” 

Father More advanced to the group; and Mr. 
Harper, who had stood aside under the shadow 


84 THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 


of a pillar, looking up at the window that por- 
trayed Jesus blessing the little ones, suddenly 
caught his breath with amazement at sight of 
the little figure that, dropping its coarse en- 
wrapping coat, stood in white-robed beauty be- 
fore the font. With Nora’s dress bound by the 
silken sash to her graceful little figure, with her 
brown hair falling in soft waves to her slen- 
der waist, her starry ‘eyes lifted in sweet half- 
comprehension and childish reverence, Jackie 
was a vision of loveliness that seemed a part of 
the shining picture above — one of the little ones 
standing in the light and love of the Living 
Lord. 

With the same strange, sweet thrill he had 
felt before the altar, Philip Harper stood 
watching the sacred rite go on; he heard the 
words of conditional baptism spoken, saw the 
water poured on the little bowed head, caught 
the name given to the little neophyte, Monica 
Mary ; but no thought of connecting this white- 
robed vision with the little beggar of the windy 
corner entered his mind. 

The baptism was over. Monica Mary stood 


THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 85 


for a moment with the shining light, the symbol 
of faith, in her little trembling hand, then the 
coarse long coat enwrapped her again. 

‘‘Be off with you all now!” said Mrs. Bryan, 
catching up the wailing Baby Ann; and the 
vision that had thrilled Philip Harper’s soul to 
new, strange depths vanished. 


CHAPTER VII 

LARCHMONT 

P ESENTLY Mr. Harper rejoined Father 
More in the study. 

“Well, what did you think of the window?'’ 
asked the priest. 

“Beautiful!" was the answer — “though I 
must confess that my view of it was not a crit- 
ical one. I was too distracted by the picture 
beneath — that lovely little child. Who and 
what is she?" 

“One of the city's waifs that has happened 
to fall into the hands of a good washerwoman, 
who brought her to me for conditional baptism. 
What a pretty little thing she is !" 

“Then she does not belong to the people who 
were with her?" asked the gentleman, with in- 
terest. 

“No," answered Father More. “The old 
86 


LARCHMONT 


87 


woman who claims her is, I understand, in the 
hospital seriously ill; and good Mrs. Bryan is 
caring for the child, as you see, most zealously. 
Ah, the beautiful charity of the poor, my 
friend ! It is like the charity of the good God 
— unstinting, unquestioning. But to return to 
the business that brought you here this morn- 
ing. What would you prefer to make of 
Larchmont*?” 

‘‘I — I really had not thought,” replied Mr. 
Harper. ‘'But your little waif of this morn- 
ing suggests a purpose to me — some sort of a 
home for friendless little ones, where they can 
have fresh air and freedom and childhood’s 
natural joys — little children who need tender- 
ness and care and mother-love; not an asylum 
or a school or a hospital, but a komeP 

“I understand,” said Father More. “It 
would be a great and blessed charity.” 

“Then we’ll start things at once,” said Mr. 
Harper. “I will go out to Larchmont this after- 
noon and see about clearing the ground. It has 
not been touched since — since — The speak- 
er’s voice broke, and then he added with sudden 


88 


LARCHMONT 


passion: “My God, Father, when I think of 
what those ashes hold !” 

“I know — I know,” said Father More, sym- 
pathetically. “My dear friend, it will be too 
hard — too painful for you. Let me go in your 
place.” 

“If you could — if you would, Father!” was 
the relieved reply. “I am weak, cowardly per- 
haps; but it would spare me pain beyond 
words.” 

“You can trust me,” said the priest, simply. 
“I will keep the place ‘holy ground,’ as you 
wish. I will go out there, if possible, at once, 
and take possession. That will keep off all in- 
truders.” 

And so it happened that about four o’clock 
that afternoon Father More was making his 
way f/om the little wayside station of Clifton, 
along a white snowy road that, shadowed by 
arching pines, led up to the range of hills where, 
ten years ago, Philip Harper’s wealth had 
made an earthly paradise for his beautiful 
bride. The house itself had been a modest rus- 
tic cottage, beautiful in its simplicity; but 


LABCHMONT 


89 


around it had stretched lawns and gardens and 
groves rich with almost tropic beauty and 
bloom; while, sweeping pure and fresh through 
all, came the breath from the sea that laved 
the white-beached shore not half a mile 
away. 

Father More kept on his way, past a dozen 
or more Queen Anne cottages that, in all the 
glory of new paint and porticos, stood out at 
intervals along the road. Then all signs of 
life suddenly ended ; the road grew rougher and 
wilder until it terminated at a stone wall that, 
broken only by an iron gateway guarded by a 
rustic lodge, stretched away on either side into 
forbidding distance. 

“You can’t get in, mister,” piped a shrill 
voice, as Father More struggled with the rusty 
bolt and bars; and a small boy peered up from 
the thicket where he had been setting traps for 
the snowbirds. “You can’t get in unless you 
shinny over the wall.” 

“I’m afraid my shinnying days are over,” 
laughed the priest, good-humoredly. 

“Old Jeff has got a key,” continued Father 


90 LARCHMONT 

More’s informer; ‘‘but he won’t give it to no- 
body.” 

“Well, I must have it,” said Father More, 
decidedly. “I come from Mr. Harper. Who 
and where is old Jeff? I’ll give you a quarter 
to take me to him.” 

“Come on, then,” said the boy, willingly. 
“ ’Tain’t far, but he won’t give it to no one — 
I bet you that!” 

He led on through the underbrush that had 
grown into a thicket about the wall, until he 
struck another path that wound about the hill- 
side to a little clearing, where a low-roofed 
cabin stood behind a snow-wreathed fence. 

A grizzled old negro shuffled to the door at 
Father More’s summons, and listened doubt- 
fully to his demands. 

“You say you’s a pahson, sah?” he asked, 
blinking up curiously at his visitor. 

“No: a priest — the priest who married Mr. 
and Mrs. Harper, and their special friend. I 
am here at his request to see Larchmont ; so give 
me the key, my good man.” 

“Yes, sah — ^yes, pahson — yes,” answered 


LARCmiONT 


91 


old Jeff. “I can’t, so to say, gib up de key, 
sah ; but I’ll take you, sah — I take you ober de 
place. You see, pahson, de debbil goes round 
like a roaring lion, and I’m responsible fur dat 
key ’gin all his roaring. He bin a roaring and 
a roaring round Larchmont fur years.” 

'‘Oh, he has*?” laughed Father More, as old 
Jeff took a rusty key from its nail and, putting 
on his hat, proceeded to act as guide to the 
ruined home. “We will soon put an end to 
that, my friend.” 

“You kin lay sperits, pahson?” asked old 
Jeff, eagerly. “I’ve heem dat some of your 
kind kin. You’re wanted round here, den, 
shuah. My ole woman hez seen dem — she hez 
de gift; and she seen dem plain. — You kite 
along dar !” said the old man to the small boy, 
who was listening with popping eyes. “Kite 
along dar to your bird-traps, Neddy Green! 
Dis talk ain’t fur chillun like you.” 

“There’s your quarter, my boy,” said Father 
More, feeling that it would be just as well for 
Neddy to miss further details of Jeff’s narra- 
tive. 


92 


LARCHMONT 


‘‘Jest lemme hear what Aunt Nance seen,” 
said Neddy, eagerly. “Was it the burned 
baby, Jeff?” 

“No, it wam’t,” answered the old man, in- 
dignantly. “Do you s’pose de good Masr is 
a-gwine to let innocents like dat go straying out 
ob de golden streets, chile? Dat dar baby is 
safe and shuah wif de Lord. When I tinks 
ob dat dar baby being cinders and ashes, pahson, 
it stirs me up, shuah !” 

“You worked at Larchmont then?” asked 
Father More; while Neddy, finding no interest- 
ing information was forthcoming, sped away 
back to his traps. 

“Round de flower-beds and de garden 
paths,” said old Jeff, with a nod. “Jest a keep- 
ing ’em nice, and free from de weeds and de 
bugs; fur dis ’ere rheumatism don’t let me do 
much more. And Nance, she was laundress — 
not fur de heavy work, but de little baby clothes 
and frills and laces. We didn’t lib dar, sah, 
having our own little place dar in the bushes; 
but we was a working dar most ob de days. 
And dey was good to us — Mr. Harper and 


LARCHMONT 


93 


Missus Nellie. Pahson” (Jeff shifted the stick 
demanded by his rheumatic leg to the other 
hand, and looked at his companion reflectively), 
“why de Lord sent de fires of tribbilation on 
good white folks like dat I can’t see.” 

“None of us can see, my friend,” said 
Father More. “We must only believe and 
trust.” 

“Dat’s so, pahson, dat’s so. Dar shuah am 
no use a digging and scraping in de ways ob de 
Lord. But dat fire dat struck Larchmont was 
shuah torment let loose. It was de fall of de 
year and eberyt’ing was dry as chips, ez de 
bad luck dat was looking round for work would 
hev it. I was down wif dis rheumatism bad, 
couldn’t lift my leg; and ole Nance was mouty 
porely too, wif the three days’ ague. She come 
home dat night mouty cross and snappish. 
What wif de doings at de big house, and Missus 
Nellie being sick at de hospital, and Mr. Har- 
per a looking arter her, de servants was a boss- 
ing like low-down white trash will. 

“ ‘I don’t go dar no more till Missus Nellie 
comes back,’ Nance sez; and den she bust out 


94 


LARCHMONT 


agin de French nuss. ‘Dat ar Lisette hez got 
a beau, and her fool head is turned,’ sez Nance. 
‘I seen her a walking off wid him under de 
cedars when she orter been minding de baby. 
Missus Nellie will be sorry yet she trusted a 
black-eyed, frizzle-headed snake in the gras wif 
dat chile.’ 

“And dat berry night, pahson, dem words of 
Nance come true, shuah. Jest nigh about two 
o’clock Nance woke me up; she was shaking 
from head to foot, and a pointing to de win- 
dow dat was so red and bright I thought it 
was day. Lord! Lord! Dar never warn’t 
any day like that! 

“ ‘It’s de jedgment!’ Nance began to shout. 
‘It’s de jedgment light a burning, ole man. 
It’s de fiery chariot swinging down from de 
skies. I hear Gabriel’s horn a blowing! It’s 
de jedgment come!’ 

“But I pushes her off and hobbles to de win- 
dow. ‘Dat ain’t no jedgment!’ I busts out. 
‘Dat’s Larchmont ablaze from roof to ground.’ 
And I was dat laid up wid rheumatism I 
couldn’t stir a foot to help or save.” 


LARCHMONT 


95 


"‘But some of the servants were saved?” 
asked Father More. 

“De cook and de two maids; but they slept 
over the kitchen. The hull front of the house 
was ablaze before any one seen it. And de 
coachman and de grooms, dat libbed ober de 
stable, couldn’t do nothing to stop it. And, 
in de shouting and de fussing, dey said all de 
women folks was out, and de baby wif ’em, 
down to de lodge. Jim Casey, de stable boy, 
said arterwards he could have sworn he had 
seen dat nuss a running wif de chile in her 
arms. But he didn’t; for dey was both burned 
to cinders dat night, ez every one knows. And 
poor Missus Nellie never looked on the place 
since. Lord! Lord!” muttered old Jeff, as 
he reached the gate and proceeded to fumble 
with the rusty lock, “sech nice white folks ez 
dey was, too, to hev de fires of tribbilation strike 
’em like dat!” 

And, with a hopeless shake of his grizzled 
head, Uncle Jeff led on through the opened gate 
into the ruined paradise beyond. 

The Maze, as the winding walk had been 


96 


LARCHMONT 


called, was now a wild tangle of snow-wreathed 
shrub and vine. Stone benches had been 
placed here and there, inviting visitors to loiter 
in especially charming nooks, where the view 
widened into glimpses of shore and sea. Tak- 
ing a sudden turn around the base of a granite 
fountain, the path opened on a picture that held 
Father More spellbound for a time with pity 
and horror, and fatherly sympathy for the woe 
of which it told. Great charred oaks lifted 
their bare boughs against the wintry sky, like 
grim battle-scarred sentinels guarding the deso- 
lation below, where, half veiled by the shroud- 
ing snow, lay the fire-swept wreck of Philip 
Harper’s paradise. The huge chimney, that 
had been the heart and hearth of the happy 
home, stood alone, blackened and battered 
among the ruins. All around, beyond, 
stretched shining vistas of sea and shore, whose 
brightness and beauty seemed to mock the deso- 
late scene. And as Father More thought of all 
the tender love and hope that lay buried under 
these ashes, his eyes filled with tears of tender 
pity. 


LARCHMONT 


97 


“Thank God I came here in poor Harper’s 
place! I do not wonder that he shrank from 
facing this. Ah, well, with Heaven’s help we 
will change, bless, sanctify it — turn all this 
desolation into light and life! We must get 
to work at once,” he said aloud. “How would 
you like to take the job of clearing this ground, 
old man? You could get help, you know.” 

“Me, sah, me clear dis here place?” Uncle 
Jeff’s dim eyes rounded at the thought. “I — 
I couldn’t, sah, I couldn’t, pahson. My ole 
Nance wouldn’t let me meddle — not — not un- 
less you could lay her first.” 

“Lay who — what?” asked Father More. 

‘'Her, sah,” answered the old man in a cau- 
tious voice , — “her dat is a roaming round here 
— dat dar French nuss dat was burned up and 
ain’t got no grave fur to rest in.” 

“Tut! tut! That’s all nonsense,” said the 
priest, cheerily. 

“No, sah — no, pahson!” and old Jeff shook 
his head solemnly. “ ’Tain’t nonsense. My 
ole Nance hez seen her twice — seen her plain, 
pahson. I dussent meddle wif dem ashes 


98 


LARCHMONT 


while she’s a walking — I dussent, sah, indeed. 
You’ll hev to get white folks ef you want to stir 
dese dead ashes here.” 

And against the final solemn shake of Uncle 
Jeff’s grizzled head Father More felt there was 
no appeal. 

‘Well, if you won’t, you won’t, I suppose,” 
he said good-humoredly; “so I will have to 
raise Larchmont from its ashes without you. 
And, with God’s help, it will rise with the flow- 
ers of spring.” 

And, strong in this happy determination, Fa- 
ther More took his way back to town. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A TRYING DAY 

S ANDY Joe had found the day a trying one 
indeed. The gay season was at its height, 
and frogs and turtles and terrapin were in con- 
stant demand. Business was so brisk that La 
Vielle, her head tied up in a yellow handker- 
chief, came down to help, and stewed and 
stirred and scolded and snapped as only she 
could. 

But, oh, the wonderful things those crooked 
old fingers concocted over the little charcoal 
stove! Parley Voo was “not in it” when La 
Vielle took a hand. Such ragouts, such pates, 
such frilled and curlycued marvels of pastry as 
Joe bore off in his covered basket for luncheons 
and suppers at homes, where the honest Irish 
cooks vowed they would not touch the “ould 
Frenchman’s varmints.” 

“It’s the boy, ma’am, with the snake pies,” 


100 


A TRYING DAT 


announced one of these newly-arrived maids, 
as Joe appeared with his basket; and all the 
lady’s laughing explanations could not change 
this opinion. La Vielle’s wonderful pastry was 
really “snake pie.” 

On this particular day “snake pie” had been 
in great demand. There had been four 
luncheons in different parts of the town, at 
which the crisp, delicate pastry shells, with their 
rich, delicious filling, had delighted the guests. 
Cheery and strong as Joe was, he was tramp- 
ing back from his last errand a little tired 
and discouraged. Poor and wretched as Gran’s 
hovel had been, the loss of it had left him home- 
less; he missed Jackie and her pretty prattle; 
he missed even the fierce old woman who had 
been so long a part of his young life. 

It had taken all his first week’s wages to pay 
Mrs. Bryan for Jackie’s needs. 

“Sure it’s not for myself I’m wanting the 
money, Joe; but the poor darling’s feet are 
bare, and she hasn’t a warm, decent rag to her 
back. It’s with the good Sisters she ought to 


A TRYING DAY 101 

be this minute. They would clothe and care 
for her.” 

“No,” said Joe, resolutely, “no, Mrs. Bryan. 
You must keep her. I can pay up.” 

And, though Joe had “paid up,” the cares of 
a family man weighed somewhat heavily upon 
him as he tramped along in his worn shoes, his 
ragged jacket open to the wind, and his torn 
hat pulled down over his mop of sandy hair. 
In fact, he felt so “down and out” this even- 
ing that he dodged around his own windy cor- 
ner hurriedly, unwilling to risk any critical re- 
marks on his clothes or calling by his former 
mates. So, turning down a narrow side street, 
that was little more than a passageway to the 
rear of a long line of warehouses, Joe was 
speeding back with his white basket to old Par- 
ley Voo, when a low, gasping cry caught his 
ear. It was followed by a voice that made him 
stop short and listen. 

“Oh, you would, would you? Squeal, you 
little rat — squeal if you can ! Tve got you ! I 
said I would. Pve got you where nobody can 


102 


A TRYING DAY 


hear, and Pm going to learn you what it is to 
snitch on me.’’ 

“Murder !” came the hoarse, choked little cry, 
— “m-u-r-der!” 

But there was no need to say more. Sandy 
Joe had dropped his basket, his blue eyes blaz- 
ing with honest fury, and sprang into the dark, 
narrow alley, where big Bill Butler had little 
Micky Fay on the ground, belaboring him with 
all his might. 

“Let up there !” cried Joe, pitching recklessly 
into the fray. “You big, mean bully, let up, I 
say ! Do you want to kill that boy !” 

And at the unexpected but well-directed 
blow from Joe’s sturdy fist, big Bill lost his 
grip on his struggling little victim and staggered 
back for a moment, only to turn with redoubled 
fury on this new antagonist. 

“It’s you, is it?” he snarled, with a wicked 
oath as he recognized Joe. “You’re a backing 
him, are you? Come on, then, come on !” 

And, though Bill was a heavyweight that 
few of his own age dared to tackle, Joe did 
come on boldly, and in a moment the two boys 


A TRYING DAY 


103 


were clinched in a fierce struggle, while little 
Micky scrambled to his feet and wildly cheered 
his champion in the unequal fight. 

“Give it to him, Joe ! He got fifteen dollars 
of your money. I seen him. Give it to him, 
Joe!” 

But Joe did not hear: he was too busy strug- 
gling against a cruel grip too fierce for his young 
strength. Choked, gasping, blinded with his 
own blood, he felt himself going down, down, 
with Bully Bill’s oaths and curses in his failing 
ear, when suddenly a commanding voice rose 
over the black chaos that was engulfing him. 

“Shame, shame! Stop this at once, boys! 
Shame on you to fight in this brutal way ! Oh, 
it’s you. Bill Butler! You had better run now 
before I call the police !” 

Sandy Joe was suddenly released at the 
sound of that clear voice. Bully Bill flung 
him to the ground, and darted away from the 
stem eyes of one who knew him for the young 
street savage that he was. 

Father More (for it was the pastor of St. 
Martin’s, returning from a sick-call, who had 


104 


A TRYING DAY 


interrupted the unequal battle) stood looking 
on rather severely as Joe, still dazed and 
blinded, staggered to his feet. 

“Pm going to break up this brutal sort of 
business,’’ said the priest. “I don’t object to 
a boyish tussle once in a while, but to go at each 
other in murderous fury like this is simply train- 
ing for the gallows,” he said sternly. 

Poor Joe was past defence or even reply. 
All things, including the grave, kind speaker, 
were whirling in a dizzy maze around him. 
Leaning against the rough wall, smudging his 
ragged jacket sleeve over his aching brow, with 
a closed eye and a bleeding nose, Sandy Joe 
looked deserving of all that Father More could 
say. 

But an eager little witness had caught the 
last words and burst forth excitedly : 

‘‘He ain’t going to no gallows. Father. No- 
body could send Sandy Joe to the gallows ’cause 
he was fighting for me. Bully Bill was a chok- 
ing and beating me, and I thought was going 
to kill me, when Joe come along and pitched in 
to make him stop.” 


A TRYING DAY 


105 


‘‘Oh, that alters the case!’' said Father More, 
who knew Bully Bill’s reputation well enough 
to accept this testimony without question. 
“You must stand by the friend that stood by 
you, Micky, and take him home. He is pretty 
well used up in your cause.” 

“I don’t know where he lives,” said Micky, 
whose acquaintance with Sandy Joe had been 
altogether on business lines until this afternoon. 

“Where is your home, my boy^?” asked the 
priest, kindly. 

“Ain’t got no home,” answered Joe huskily; 
feeling, in his dull bewilderment, that this 
grave, authoritative gentleman must be some 
judge or magistrate of the law. “Ain’t got 
nothing nor anybody now.” And there was a 
catch in his voice that went straight to the good 
priest’s heart. 

“Suppose you come with me, then? And 
we’ll do something for that eye and nose,” he 
said kindly. “You can come along too, Micky, 
if you like.” 

Micky did “like” decidedly. One or two 
errands to the pastoral residence had been so 


106 


A TRYING DAY 


pleasantly concluded with apples and ginger- 
bread that he needed no second invitation to ac- 
company Joe, who was still too dazed from his 
late pummelling to distinguish between minis- 
ters of the law and of the Gospel. With a 
vague idea that he was being taken somewhere 
to answer for this disturbance of the peace, 
Joe stumbled along beside Father More through 
the darkening streets; while Micky, wiser in 
priestly ways, poured eager and detailed infor- 
mation into the fatherly ear. 

“Bill Butler snatched all my papers this eve- 
ning; and when I ran away, he dodged in the 
alley and caught me where nobody could see, 
and he choked me and beat me, and I reckon he 
would have killed me if Joe hadn’t come along 
and pitched into him like he did.” 

“Bill Butler is a very bad boy, I know,” said 
Father More. 

“He’s the worstest in town,” said Micky, ex- 
citedly. “My, you ought to have heard him 
lying the other day ’bout his sister Julia Ann, 
and how she had the measles. And he ain’t got 


A TRYING DAY 


107 


no sister Julia Ann at all ; and she never had no 
measles. And the man gave him fifteen dol- 
lars to get her clothes and a doctor; and it was 
all meant for Sandy Joe and Jackie, I know.” 

“Jackie,” the queer little name^? Where 
had Father More heard it before? His busy 
days were so crowded with the sorrows and 
sins and troubles of the great parish, that 
stretched into highways and byways that such 
good shepherds must tread, that Father More 
had only a vague remembrance of the name. 

While Micky chattered on, he led the boys 
into the quieter streets, where the spire of St. 
Martin’s rose in the misty twilight, and the big 
old-fashioned rectory stood looking rather grey 
and grim in the gathering gloom. Joe drew 
back as they reached the cross-crowned iron 
gateway. 

“Let me off. Mister,” he said with a little 
catch in his throat that was as near as Sandy 
Joe ever came to a sob or a cry. “I — I ain’t 
ever been pinched before, and — and — ” again 
the speaker choked up. 


108 


A TRYING DAY 


“Pinched!” echoed Father More, cheerily. 
“My dear boy, this is not a ‘pinch.’ Did you 
take me for a policeman*?” he laughed. 

“Oh, no!” said little Micky. “Joe, Father 
More is a priest. — But he don’t know nothing 
about priests. Father,” continued Micky, apolo- 
getically. “He don’t know nothing at all.” 

“I see he doesn’t,” said Father More, laying 
a reassuring hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Well, 
we must teach him something to-night, Micky.” 

And the teaching proved one of the pleas- 
antest experiences of Joe’s rough life. The 
grey, grim old house opened warm and bright 
and firelit to take him in; he was put in the 
hands of a nice, motherly old woman in white 
cap and kerchief — Father More explaining the 
situation in a few words. 

“Och, the poor lad; it’s kilt entirely he is!” 
said the good housekeeper, sympathetically. 
“Never mind, my dear! I’ve had six boys of 
my own, and I’ve mended many a sore head be- 
fore this.” 

And so effectual was the mending that in less 
than half an hour Joe’s eye was open again. 


A TRYING DAY 


109 


his nose reduced to its normal size; and, with 
his wits in working order, he was sitting up at a 
set table in Mrs. Mullan’s cheery kitchen, and 
doing full justice to a supper that seemed a 
hungry boy’s dream. No frills and fancy fix- 
ings here. Good Mrs. Mullan’s “six boys” had 
taught her better than that — fried ham and 
eggs, and plenty of them; a hot potato cake, 
flaky and brown ; coffee, made milky and sweet 
as boys like it; apple sauce, gingerbread, and 
doughnuts thick with sugar and spice. And 
Micky told again the story of the fight. Mrs. 
Mullan’s motherly wrath rose against the “mur- 
thering blackguard”; and Joe realized at last 
how Bill Butler had cheated him and poor little 
Jackie out of the generous lady’s gift. 

After supper Father More called the boys 
up into his study. Tall bookcases lined the 
walls; there was a shaded lamp on the centre 
table; the soft coal fire burning in the open 
grate filled the room with a ruddy glow. Joe 
stared for a moment at the grave, handsome 
face clearly outlined now by the cheery light, 
and burst forth : 


110 


A TRYING DAY 


‘‘Oh, I know you now, Mister! You’re the 
Christmas preacher that told us about the 
angels.” 

“He ain’t no preacher,” interposed Micky, in 
a shocked voice. “You ought to say ‘Father,’ 
Joe Darnley.” 

Father More laughed softly : 

“Yes, it was I who told about the angels last 
Christmas, Joe. So you were there, and you 
had never heard of angels before^” 

“No, Father — not that kind of angels,” an- 
swered Joe, breathlessly; “not the kind that 
comes down out of the sky and takes care of us. 
It was fine. I never forgot it. And it’s true. 
Father; isn’t it?” There was in Joe’s tone the 
wistful note of one who had felt the hard knocks 
of a false world. “You wouldn’t stand up 
there and give us boys lies, I know.” 

“No, I wouldn’t give you lies,” said Father 
More, simply ; while little Catholic Micky stood 
aghast at Joe’s question. “It is all true.” 

“I am glad to know it,” replied Joe, draw- 
ing a long breath of relief, “I’m mighty glad to 
hear it. I was afraid maybe it might be like 


A TRYING DAY 


111 


Santa Claus or fairies or something; and, 
though I don’t ask no angel watching me, I’d 
like to think they were looking after a little girl 
I know.” 

“And they are, you may be sure ; and looking 
after you, too, my boy.” And Father More, 
who had risen from his armchair, laid his hand 
kindly on Joe’s shoulder. “I’d like to talk to 
you more about them, but I have an engage- 
ment with an old friend who ought to be here 
now. Did you have a good supper*?” 

“Fine !” answered Joe, enthusiastically. 
“That potato cake was great !” 

“Come again then, and I’ll see that you get 
some more ; and if Micky will bring you to the 
children’s Mass Sunday, you will hear some 
more true talk about the angels. Will you 
come?” 

“Yes, Father,” answered Joe, whose Sundays 
were his own, and hung rather heavy on him 
these homeless days. “I’d like to come first- 
rate.” 

“It’s a bargain, then,” said Father More, as 
he extended a hand to each of his young guests 


112 


A TRYING DAY 


in a farewell clasp. “And it’s up to you, 
Micky, to help the angels and bring Joe to 
church, ril keep my eyes open for you both. 
So good-night now, boys, good-night! For 
here comes my other visitor.” 

And the boys scrambled through the hall door 
that had just opened to admit a gentleman in a 
fur-lined overcoat, whom keen-eyed Micky 
recognized at a glance. 

“Gee!” he gasped, catching his companion’s 
arm. “That’s him, Joe!” 

“Who?” asked Joe, whose eyes were still a 
little the worse for his late encounter. 

said Micky, “the man that Bully 
Bill done out of your fifteen dollars. It’s him, 
sure ! Let’s go back and tell him, Joe.” 

“What for?” asked Joe, grimly. “You 
don’t suppose he’s going to give it to me again, 
do you? Bet your life he isn’t. Just my luck, 
so let it go. I’m in a bad fix as it is. I’ve 
lost my basket and my napkin, and — geewhilli- 
kins!” Joe stopped short and began to dive 
into his tom jacket. “Now I’m done for, 
sure!” he concluded in despair. 


A TRYING DAY 


113 


“What’s the matter asked Micky. 

“I’ve lost the money the lady paid me for the 
last stuff — five whole dollars. Old Parley Voo 
will jail me for it, sure!” 


CHAPTER IX 


TRIED AND TRUE 

Joe, you haven’t lost the money!” 
V-/ gasped Micky, in sympathetic dismay. 
‘‘Yes, I have,” answered Joe, grimly; and he 
showed his jacket, rent from sleeve to pocket. 
“It was in there.” 

“Look again, Joe,” said Micky, breathless at 
this crowning disaster. “It might be stuck 
somewhere.” 

“Ain’t no place to stick,” replied Joe. 
“That was all the pocket I had. And it was a 
good one : I sewed it myself.” 

“I bet Bill Butler jerked it out !” cried Micky. 
“Let’s go tell Officer Ryan.” 

“What’s the good?” asked Joe. “He can’t 
do nothing. I got in a fight, and tore my jacket 
and lost my money. Cops ain’t going to bother 
about that. It’s Parley Voo I’m thinking of. 
Five dollars! Gee whiz! He nearly had a 

114 


TRIED AND TRUE 


115 


fit because the last boy he had got away with 
sixty cents. Five dollars !” 

There was a moment’s silence. Micky felt 
that the situation was tragic beyond his reach. 
Five dollars! His wildest business imagina- 
tion had never soared so high. 

“You oughtn’t to carry such a lot of money 
around, Joe,” he said at last. 

“Why oughtn’t I?” asked Joe, who was in 
no mood for criticism. “It’s C. O. D. with old 
Parley Voo for his victuals. You can’t levy 
on them, if they are eaten up. My, but he’ll 
be busting mad, and La Vielle will just tear 
things up. Shouldn’t wonder if they had me 
locked up.” And Joe sank down on a water 
plug near by, and stared gloomily into the sur- 
rounding darkness. 

A sudden gleam flashed into little Catholic 
Micky’s head. 

“Let’s go back and tell Father More. 
Maybe he will help you out.” 

“Help me out?” echoed Joe. “What would 
he help me out for?” 

“Oh, because — because he’d be sorry,” 


116 


TRIED AND TRUE 


“No,” said Joe, rousing into his own self 
again. “I ain’t going to no preacher, to whine 
and cry like — like a baby girl. I’m going to 
stand up to my luck, Micky. I’ve got to go 
back and face old Parley Voo.” 

“What for*?” asked Micky, sharply. “Why 
have you got to go back and be pinched per- 
haps for losing the money 

Joe stared silently at the little speaker for a 
moment. There was a quick wit, after all, in 
Micky’s towy head. Why go back? There 
was nothing to hold him to the dark cot under 
Parley Voo’s counter, or to La Vielle, with her 
snapping eyes and her sharp tongue. 

“If I was scared of trouble like that. I’d 
skip,” continued Joe’s small counsellor. 

“Parley Voo would set the cops after me,” 
answered Joe. “He said the next boy that 
stole from him he’d jail him sure; and he’d 
think I stoleJ^ The young voice trembled at 
the word. 

“I’d let him think it,” said Micky. “I’d 
skip this town, Joe. You ain’t got no one to 


care. 


TRIED AND TRUE 


117 


No one to care ! The words rang out sharply 
through the darkness into which Joe was star- 
ing. No one to care. He could skip off from 
the blame and the shame and the danger, and 
scramble for himself in safety and freedom, as 
boys like Sandy Joe always can. He thought 
of old Parley Voo and La Vielle, and their 
miserly count of pennies and dimes, and felt 
their wrath would be without mercy at his es- 
cape. Yes, he could skip off in the darkness, 
sneak a ride on the freight-cars in the station, 
and strike out for himself in another town. 
There were plenty of ways a sharp boy could 
make money, Sandy Joe knew. Ah ! the dark- 
ness was very heavy around poor Joe just now 
— darkness in which many a boy makes his first 
misstep into the downward way ; and, as Micky 
said, there was “no one to care.” No one*? 
Joe suddenly caught his breath with something 
like a sob. 

“Yes, there /j, Micky Fay,” he blurted out. 
“There zs some one to care. There’s Jackie. I 
can’t go back on Jackie. I told her I’d stick 
by her, and I will. If I’d skip off from this 


118 


TRIED AND TRUE 


town, they’d put her in the asylum and break 
her poor little heart. Not that it ain’t a good 
place, but Gran has made her so scared of it 
that it would kill her outright. And she is so 
happy and respectable with Mrs. Bryan. And 
they’ve had her christened Monica Mary, and 
she’s getting on fine. I’ve got to stand by 
Jackie no matter what happens. I’ll go back 
to Parley Voo and tell him, and I’ll work out 
the five dollars, and he can blow till he busts ” 
said Joe, desperately. 

“My, but you’ve got the sand !” said Micky 
Fay. 

“It ain’t ‘sand’; it’s — it’s Jackie,” answered 
Joe. “She ain’t got no one but me and that 
angel the preacher told us about; and I’m not 
going to shirk my end of the job, sure. So 
let’s get along.” 

And Joe rose from his seat on the water plug, 
straightened his square shoulders and started out 
to meet his fate; while little Micky scurried 
away to his own home to tell his even- 
ing’s adventure to a sympathetic family And 
Joe, homeless, friendless, fatherless, strode on 


TRIED AND TRUE 


119 


bravely through the darkness, in which as yet 
there was no ray of heaven’s light — in which 
his simple, faithful love for little Jackie was 
the only guiding star. For her he was facing 
harsh blame, punishment, perhaps disgrace, 
from which his honest young soul shrank. 
What judgment old Parley Voo would pass on 
him he dared not think ; for he was the last of a 
series of boys that had roused the old man’s 
wrath ; and his culminating fury would be sure 
to burst to-night. 

A soft yearning came into his heart to see 
Jackie before the judgment fell; to set himself 
right with good Mrs. Bryan; to find the pity 
and sympathy that was all this humble friend 
had to give. So he turned into the old familiar 
ways for a brief visit to Squatter Town before 
he encountered Parley Voo. 

The night was dark, and the long street, with 
its far-scattered lights, was a lonely climb for 
Joe’s bruised and stiffened limbs. Was it only 
ten nights ago he had taken it so blithely with 
“Dutchy’s” sausages in his pocket and Jackie 
pickaback on his shoulder? It seemed almost 


120 


TRIED AND TRUE 


a year, so heavily had life’s cares weighed upon 
Sandy Joe since then. But the light shone 
bright in Mrs. Bryan’s window, and at his 
knock the door swung open on a cheery scene. 

Work was over for the day; the snowy, ironed 
clothes were packed away in their big hampers 
to be called for; and Mrs. Bryan was seated in 
her splint rocker, taking a well-earned rest. 
Baby Ann nestling happily in her motherly 
arms. The lamp burned bright on the red- 
covered table where Molly and Nora were 
studying their to-morrow’s lessons; while Pat 
was initiating Jackie into the mysteries of the 
alphabet on the painted blocks that had been 
his Sunday-school Christmas gift two years be- 
fore. 

^ut books and blocks were alike dropped 
when Joe appeared in the doorway, and all the 
children sprang forward in glad greeting. 

‘‘Oh, but he is hurt! Joe is hurt! What 
has happened to you, dear^” was the changed 
chorus as the bandaged hero was drawn into the 
room. And, seated by the cheery fire, he told 
his troubles to a circle of breathless listeners. 


TRIED AND TRUE 


121 


‘‘Glory be to God, did any one ever hear the 
like^” said Mrs. Bryan, giving voice to the gen- 
eral dismay. “Sure the Lord’s hand will fall 
on that young villain yet. To be robbing and 
killing decent boys on the public street !” 

“Oh, Joe, my Joe!” sobbed Jackie. “Did 
he hurt you very much, Joe?” 

“And to take all the money the lady sent for 
Jackie’s clothes!” cried Molly and Nora. 

“Whist now with your ‘Jackie’!” reproved 
their mother. “Didn’t I tell you it was to be 
Monica Mary from this time out? Sure and 
it’s the bad luck has struck you hard this day, 
Joe, and you just after paying all your hard- 
earned money for Jackie — I mean Monica 
Mary. Monica darling, show Joe your pretty 
new shoes and the little red frock Molly is mak- 
ing for you.” 

“And I will pay for all somehow,” said Joe, 
as he met the shining gaze of the upturned eyes. 
“I’ll square up with old Parley Voo if I have to 
skin frogs all night for it.” 

And, strangely cheered by this view of his 
family responsibilities, Joe was ready to listen 


122 


TRIED AND TRUE 


to all the news of Squatter Town. There was 
a new baby at the Muldoons, Ellie Monaghan 
was down with a fever, and the doctor had re- 
ported that Gran was weakening every day. 

“And never a glimmer of sense in her since 
she was taken away !” sighed Mrs. Bryan, shak- 
ing her head. “Pm thinking if s not long she’ll 
trouble any one. God help her ! And that re- 
minds me ! There was a man here to-day ask- 
ing for her, Joe; and, though I didn’t like the 
looks of him, I thought there might be an in- 
surance or something coming to her, and I spoke 
to him kindly. When he heard the old woman 
was in the hospital he asked several questions.” 

“What about*?” said Joe, with interest. 

“If she had children or grandchildren, and 
where they were, I said I couldn’t tell. God 
forgive me if it was a lie ! But I knew Monica 
Mary was neither child nor grandchild, and 
where you were I couldn’t say. I didn’t like 
his looks, and there was a queer foreign twist 
to his tongue. And Jackie — I mean Monica 
Mary — didn’t like his looks either. She was 
all shaking when he patted her head and asked 


TRIED AND TRUE 123 

her name. You didn’t like him either ; did you, 
darling?” 

“No,” answered Jackie, who was seated on 
the braided hearth-rug at Mrs. Bryan’s feet. 
“He looked like my old bad-dream man.” 

“Oh, he did?” said Joe, with a smile. “I 
thought that bad-dream man had gone long 
ago.” 

“He did, but he came back last night,” re- 
plied Jackie, shaking her brown head. 

“Indeed he did,” said Mrs. Bryan. “She 
woke us all up in the dead of night, crying and 
screaming.” 

“That’s her old baby trick,” said Joe, ten- 
derly. “So the bad-dream man came again; 
did he, Jackie? Did the good dreams come 
too? My, such dreams as Jackie used to have ! 
Tell Mrs. Bryan about them, Jackie — about the 
flowers and the trees, and the nice old black 
man riding you around on his shoulder, and the 
lady that used to sing you asleep in her arms.” 

“I don’t dream those good things any more,” 
said Jackie, sadly. “I guess I’m too big now. 
But the bad-dream man came last night, and I 


124 


TRIED AND TRUE 


— I couldn’t talk or cry or call anybody, and 
— and — ” The child sprang to her feet, and, 
shuddering and sobbing, flung her arms about 
Mrs. Bryan’s neck. “Oh, don’t let me dream it 
again, Mrs. Bryan — don’t let me dream it 
again !” 

“Sure you won’t, darling!” soothed that 
good mother tenderly. “It was the bit of raisin 
bread you had for supper last night that made 
you uneasy. There! there, avoumeen! I’ll 
sprinkle the bed with holy water to-night, and 
never a bad dream will come near you after 
that. Whist now! Sure it’s the wise little 
head she has for such a bit of a creature, scarce 
seven years old — the wise little head!” 

“Gee, but you’re good to her!” said Joe, 
gratefully. “And I’m going to pay you for 
it. I’m a going to stick right by Jackie and 
pay for it, sure.” 

“May God bless you, Joe! You are doing 
the best, I know. But whisper, lad!” Mrs. 
Bryan put down the sleeping Baby Ann on the 
bit of ragged carpet, and motioned Joe to step 
back with her to the shelves that served as 


TRIED AND TRUE 


125 


dresser and china closet. ‘‘Whist now! Say 
nothing to nobody, but I don’t want you to get 
into trouble with that old Frenchman. I’ve a 
little money in this drawer here, that I’ve been 
saving up for the dark days that come to all of 
us.” And she shook out a shower of dimes and 
quarters on a china plate. “Count out what 
you want, my lad, and take it to Parley Voo.” 

“Oh, I can’t, I can’t! It’s too much,” said 
Joe, breathlessly, “it’s too much, Mrs. Bryan !” 

“Not a bit!” laughed the good woman. 
“Sure you’ll pay it back every cent, I know, lad. 
Take it, Joe; and God bless you!” 

“Oh, I don’t just know how to thank you, 
Mrs. Bryan !” said Joe in a choked voice, as the 
true friend bundled up the silver in a bit of 
cloth and pressed it into his hand. “I came 
very near skipping the town to-night.” 

“And be branded as a thief forever !” said the 
good woman. “You’re too brave a lad for 
that, Joe. You did right to stand to your bad 
luck like a man.” 

“Oh, I will, I will!” said Joe, eagerly. 
“And I’ll never forget you, Mrs. Bryan. I’ll 


126 TRIED AND TRUE 

stand by you and Jackie, and never, never for- 
get!” 

And, with this resolve warming his grateful 
young heart, Joe bade the Bryan household 
good-bye and set off cheerily to his post again. 


CHAPTER X 


IN THE ROMAINE 

P OOR Joe had a long climb ; but he was used 
to the hard, rough backways of life. It 
was only the glitter of mirrors and marble halls 
that bewildered him. Five flights of winding, 
spidery stairs, and then he paused. A door was 
swinging open, as if awaiting him; and he en- 
tered without ceremony, as he was accustomed 
to enter the kitchen doors where he delivered his 
orders every day. But this was not a kitchen : 
it seemed a hall, narrow and dark. Light and 
voices came from a curtained doorway beyond; 
and, never doubting he was on the right track to 
the midnight feast, Joe was stepping briskly 
forward when a volley of fierce oaths from a 
speaker within made him pause. Gentlemen 
sometimes drank and quarrelled over midnight 
suppers, as Joe knew ; and perhaps it would not 

be safe or wise to intrude just at once. And 
127 


128 


IN THE ROMAINE 


while he stood doubtfully in the darkness the 
angry voice spoke again : 

“Don’t chatter in that miserable lingo of 
yours. Speak plain English. Who is dead?” 

“Ze old woman, Monsieur, ze woman who 
had ze child, ze old woman Darnley. 2^y tell 
me at ze hospital zat Madge Darnley have died 
to-night.” 

Old Madge Darnley! Now, indeed, Joe 
stood too shocked and breathless to move. 
Gran, dead! — Poor old Gran! Joe was 
young and warm-hearted enough to feel a great 
rush of pity and pain; for the old woman had 
loved him in her own fierce way. Gran dead, 
and they were talking about it here ! 

“I was at her place to-day. Monsieur, ques- 
tioning, asking. Zey told me she was at St. 
Luke’s Hospital, very badly hurt. Bien^ I stop 
zere to ask. Zey tell me old Madge Darnley 
have died to-night.” 

Gran dead and these strange men were talk- 
ing about her! What was Gran to them? 
What were they going to do with her? Joe 


IN THE ROMAINE 


129 


had heard grisly stories about doctors and their 
doings ; and, with a chill in his young heart, he 
held his breath and listened. 

“What is that to me^” said the speaker, with 
a great oath. “The old hag is a good riddance, 
unless — unless” — and there was a sharp change 
in the angry tones — “unless she told tales before 
she died, and then — ” 

“Monsieur, no, no ! Zere is but two who can 
tell tales now — ^Lisette and me. You have 
paid us, it is true; but — ” 

“I paid you, indeed — ^paid you to leave this 
country forever. You swore that I should 
never see you again.” 

“Ah, yes. Monsieur, yes, I swore! But I 
could not tell ze sorrow, ze trouble that was to 
come. We lose all — everything you gave us. 
Monsieur. And Lisette, that was so bright and 
smart, she grew weak and sick and can not work. 
It is God’s curse she say. Monsieur. It is all 
I can do to keep her from going to ze priest — 
fool zat she is — and confessing all. I have 
to frighten her day and night to kill all ze love 


130 


IN THE BOMAINE 


in her heart, to make her tremble and fear. 
Bien^ Monsieur, when I find ze trouble so great 
I come to you.” 

“To rob, to fleece, to blackmail me, you 
scoundrel!” was the fierce rejoinder, in a tone 
that made the young listener shake in his 
patched shoes. 

Joe had learned enough of the wicked world 
at his windy corner to know he was in a tight 
place, and he must get out as cautiously as he 
could ; but the last speaker was pacing the room 
restlessly, so perilously close to his hiding-place 
he dared not move. 

“Ah, Monsieur, non^ non^ non! If you 
would but regard poor Pierre as of old — as your 
servant, as your friend. Monsieur!” 

“Friend!” echoed the other, savagely. “I 
would like to cut your lying tongue out, you 
dog ! It was you — you — ” 

“Who showed Monsieur ze way — ze easy 
way to fortune, to happiness — such an easy 
way. Monsieur! And now zat you have all, 
zat you are so rich, so great, so honored, you 
will refuse ze poor Pierre his share. You will 


IN THE ROMAINE 


131 


give ze poor dog his bone^ If not, ah, Mon- 
sieur, ze poor dog has ze teeth. He will — bite 
as all dogs will when zey are hungry and cold.” 

The answer was an oath that came hissing 
through the heavy curtains almost in Joe’s ear, 
so close was the pacing sp>eaker to the doorway. 

Joe clutched his paper box with trembling 
hand, and wondered how he could get safely 
out. Never before in all his young life had 
he felt so frightened; there was such fierce, 
deadly passion in the words that reached his 
ear. 

“Go on !” continued the hissing voice. 
“Show your hand! You have some devilish 
trick hidden in it, I know. But, remember, I 
am Louis Lamont, able in every way to defy 
the beggarly valet I engaged six years ago, 
in spite of the rascally record he was finding it 
hard to outlive. Who would believe your 
story against mine?” 

“There is one. Monsieur, who would give all 
— everything that he has in the world, rich as he 
is — to hear it. If I should go to Monsieur 
Harper and confess ! If Lisette should go to 


182 


IN THE ROMAINE 


Madame Harper, who is dying for grief! If 
we should take little Jacqueline by ze hand 
and say, ‘Madame, forgive us ! See your 
child!’ ” 

“The child, the child! You lying devil! 
You told me the child was dead when I saw you 
in Paris three years ago, and now you would 
try to foist some other on me.” 

“Ah, Monsieur, no! No, it is ze same. I 
lied in Paris, indeed, to comfort you, to ease 
Monsieur. Ze child did not die. She lives, 
beautiful as an angel. Monsieur — ^my, how 
beautiful in her beggar rags ! Monsieur, 
listen ! She is with Catholics. Ze priests, who 
know so much, who are so wise, so clear to see, 
zey have taken ze little one to church ; zey have 
been up to Larchmont, looking, questioning. 
Zere is danger. Monsieur, zere is danger that 
they will discover all — all !” 

“And you dare to face me with this story, 
you lying dog!” came the hoarse, passionate 
cry. “You dare to come here to-night and tell 
me you have deceived, betrayed me like this !” 

“No, Monsieur, not deceived, not betrayed 


IN THE ROMAINE 


133 


— ^not yet — not yet ! It is for Monsieur to say 
if I may serve him still. I have ze plan that 
will make all safe, sure for you, for me, for 
Lisette — ze plan that will do no harm. It will 
cost Monsieur not much: only three hundred 
dollars now — three hundred dollars every year 
— three hundred out of Monsieur’s great for- 
tune that poor Pierre got for him by his wicked 
wits — only three hundred; and then Lisette 
and I will take ze little one away — far 
away.” 

A peremptory clang at the electric bell broke 
in upon the soft, persuasive speech. 

“Lamont ! Lamont !” came a cheery call at 
an outer door of the apartment. “Wake up, 
you sleepy-head ! — wake up ! It’s Wynn. 
Have you forgotten our supper to-night? We 
are waiting for you, Louis, Louis Lamont!” 

“Monsieur, you must not go without answer- 
ing me,” came the fierce voice within. “Lisette 
is sick; already have I had to beg from her old 
grandmother, who is old and poor. We must 
have ze money, Monsieur, or — or — ” 

“Lamont! Lamont! Louis Lamont, do 


134 


IN THE ROMAINE 


you hear?’' The outer door shook under a 
vigorous hand. 

‘'Curses on you all!” muttered that gentle- 
man. “I’ll have to go, or those fools outside 
will break the door down. Wait here, wait! 
It may be an hour or more, but wait until I 
come back, and then I will hear what you have 
to say.” 

And as the speaker hurried off to open the 
door, at which his untimely visitors were clamor- 
ing, Sandy Joe recovered his breath and his 
wits, and made tracks for the fire-escape, all 
sound of his rapid retreat lost in the hilarious 
greetings of the midnight revelers to their lag- 
gard friend. 

“You can’t go back on us like that, Louis, my 
boy! We’re waiting for you and for old 
Parley Voo’s pates. He swore he would have 
them here at eleven sharp, but the truth isn’t 
in the old rascal. Come up, anyhow, come up, 
and we’ll begin on beer and cheese.” 

The words reached Parley Voo’s hurrying 
messenger, and guided him on his way. One, 


IN THE ROMAINE 


135 


two, three more flights of the dizzy stairs; and 
wide-open windows, flaring with light and echo- 
ing with mirth and merriment, told him he had 
reached his goal. 

The young artists who occupied this sky par- 
lor of the Romaine were having a studio supper 
to-night, and it was a gay scene in which Joe 
appeared at last, to be hailed triumphantly by a 
merry crowd. The wide, low room was filled 
with all sorts of queer things. Statues, casts, 
draperies, skins of lions and tigers, half-finished 
pictures and sketches lined the walls ; a skeleton 
stood in a glass case in one corner; a skull 
grinned from the mantel. But a big log fire 
blazed in the wide hearth; and a table, filled 
with all sorts of good things, stretched the 
length of the room. Two young men in gay 
jackets and tasselled caps were making coffee on 
the gas stove; another was toasting cheese in a 
chafing dish; others were smoking long, curl- 
ing pipes or thrumming on banjos and mando- 
lins. 

‘"Here he is ! Here he is !” shouted a dozen 


136 


IN THE ROMAINE 


voices, and Joe and his box were greeted with 
delight. ‘'Here is our winged Mercury with 
his belated burden ! Wynn promised us a feast 
of the Olympic gods, and here it is dropped 
from the midnight skies!” 

“Not at all, — not at all !” laughed the gentle- 
man at the chafing dish. “No ambrosia about 
this treat, my friends. I warn you in advance 
that it was concocted by the veriest old witch 
that ever stepped out of canvas. Hecate is a 
houri to her. I discovered her a week ago in a 
deep, dark den known only to the initiated. 
No, I can’t give her abiding place. I am sworn 
to secrecy by one of the most charming women I 
know. She assured me she was betraying the 
confidence of a select and sacred circle in allow- 
ing me to give this order to-night. As she truly 
said, if our Hecate and her witch work were dis- 
covered, some multi-millionaire, like Lamont 
here, would whisk her off into his kitchen, and 
we should see her no more. She doesn’t cook: 
she conjures. I thought she had gone back on 
me to-night, but she vowed with crooked fingers 
that my order would be here in time ; and it is, 


IN THE ROMAINE 137 

as you see. How did you come, lad? On a 
black cat or a broomstick?” 

“Neither, sir,” said Joe, staring up into the 
gentleman’s laughing eyes. “I came up the fire- 
escape.” 

“Which is the broomstick’s modern equiva- 
lent. I envy you your head, my boy, and your 
heels. I couldn’t take that climb for a month’s 
income. Here is your money, with a half dol- 
lar extra for yourself.” 

And, glad that this whole bewildering busi- 
ness was over, Joe thanked the generous donor, 
pocketed the unusual tip, and again hurried 
away down the spidery stair to the side-street 
below. He felt no fear or unsteadiness now, 
though his head was throbbing strangely, his 
brain whirling with confusing thoughts he 
vainly tried to clear into shape. 

It had been a hard evening even for Sandy 
Joe. He was still sore from Bill Butler’s pum- 
melling; but, though his head ached dully be- 
neath its throb, that did not trouble him so 
much. It was the shock, the frightened wait in 
the darkness, those fierce, angry words he had 


138 


IN THE ROMAINE 


overheard, that were now bewildering him, con- 
fusing him. It was as if those voices were still 
roaring in his ears, dulling all other sound and 
sense. The breathless terror in which he had 
listened seemed to have fixed every word on 
his memory. 

Gran was dead — dead. That had been 
plain; the man had said old Madge Damley 
had died to-night. But the child^ — what child 
did they mean^ Jacqueline they had said. 
Could Jacqueline be Jackie^ And who were 
Lisette and Mr. Harper? And what was there 
in it all to make a gentleman curse and swear 
in a way that had chilled even Sandy Joe, used 
as he was to rough talk? 

Jacqueline, Jacqueline must mean little 
Jackie. Joe felt his head buzzing and spinning 
more wildly every moment as he tried to think 
it all out. If Jacqueline were Jackie, they 
must surely have been talking, planning, swear- 
ing about her. If Jackie were Jacqueline — as 
Joe tried to put it another way to his whirling 
thoughts, a sudden sharp fear for his little play- 
mate struck like an icy chill through his warm. 


IN THE ROMAINE 


139 


faithful heart; and so sharp and startling a fear 
that his head turned, his foot slipped, he reeled, 
staggered, and fell down — down — down, into 
blank darkness below. 


CHAPTER XI 


IN THE HOSPITAL 

J OE drifted through a long, long stretch of 
darkness, breaking gradually into troubled 
visions of black chasms and dizzy heights — 
back into a dream world, whose shores seemed 
strangely pleasant and new. He was conscious 
of a delicious feeling of comfort and rest un- 
known in his brief experience ; vaguely aware of 
low voices and soothing touches; sweet music 
stole faintly to his ear; there was a fragrance as 
of far-off flowers, but he was too drowsy to 
think or care. 

Slowly light and sound cleared for him, until 
one wintry evening his blue eyes opened on the 
shaft of sunset light trembling on the snowy 
little bed in which he lay, weak and help- 
less indeed, but quite wide-awake again. He 
looked around him. Twenty other beds, 

equally small and snowy, stretched along the 
140 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


141 


sides of the wide room, in the centre of which 
arose a tall white-winged figure that held Joe’s 
wondering gaze. An angel surely — the angel 
of whom he had thought and dreamed; to 
whom, in his simple, untaught way, he had 
prayed. Ah! he must be dreaming still, he 
felt ; as, too tired to think things out, he closed 
his eyes wearily on the beautiful vision. It 
would fade away, he knew ; for all these dream 
pictures did. 

But in a little while his eyes unclosed and the 
angel still stood there white and strong and 
lovely, his arm around a little child clinging to 
his side, a vase of roses at his feet. And then 
a sweet-faced lady in a queer white bonnet 
brought Joe a glass of milk, and lifted his head 
gently while he drank its every drop. Oh, 
how good it was — how rich and smooth and 
sweet ! 

“Who are you?” asked Joe, as she laid him 
back on his pillow. “And who — who — ” (he 
pointed with trembling finger at the white 
figure) “who is that?” 

“Ah, you are better this evening,” said the 


142 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


lady, putting her soft hand on his brow and 
smiling pleasantly. “I am Sister Patricia, who 
am nursing you, my dear boy; and that is the 
good Angel Guardian, in whose ward you have 
been all this week. Now we must talk no more, 
or you will be worse again. Go to sleep.” 

And the soft hand seemed to soothe Joe off 
once more into pleasant dreams. When he 
woke again Sister Patricia was gone, but the 
Angel stood watching still. It was dark now 
in the long room, except for a pale light like a 
star that burned before the Angel. And in 
the shadow and silence Joe’s wits began to 
work. 

Where was he? What was he doing here? 
Why was he lying in this white bed in the 
Angel’s care? Was he dead and could this be 
heaven? At the thought Joe started up from 
his pillow, but fell back again with a little 
moan of weakness and pain. 

‘‘Hallo!” came a low voice through the dark- 
ness. “Hallo, redhead! Are you awake too?” 

“Yes,” answered Joe, immensely relieved by 
the “earthiness” of the greeting. 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


143 


“So am I. My back gets so bad sometimes I 
can’t sleep and it’s against the rules to talk,” 
came the whispered information. “But it’s so 
lonesome staying awake in the dark; and if you 
speak low she won’t hear.” 

'‘Who won’t hear?” asked Joe, with his eye 
on the watching Angel. 

“Sister Pat that’s been nursing you. She’s 
been nursing me, too; though it’s no good, the 
doctors say. I’m down and out for good and 
all. Run over by the cars last summer. Both 
legs gone and my back queer. Been in the hos- 
pital six months and a half yesterday.” 

The hospital ! This, then, was a hospital ! 
Joe’s wits began to clear rapidly. A hospital ! 
Then — then he must have been hurt, too. 

“I’m in a plaster jacket now,” continued his 
informer. “That’s what keeps me awake at 
night. Y ou can’t sleep good in a plaster j acket, 
try as you may.” 

“Am I in a plaster jacket, too?” asked Joe, 
nervously. 

“You! Why, no!” An unmistakable boy- 
ish chuckle came through the darkness. “I 


144 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


guess you’re loony yet. Don’t you know what’s 
the matter with you^ You tumbled off a fire 
escape in the dark, and hurt your head. Mr. 
Wynn, that paints pictures, brought you here 
and said it was his fault telling you to go down 
that way. You had brought him up his sup- 
per, and so he’d pay all the damages.” 

‘‘Bobby ! Bobby !” A sweet but firm voice 
broke in upon this interesting conversation. “I 
hear you talking. It is against the rules, as 
you know. Be quiet now, and try to go to 
sleep.” 

And Bobby relapsed into silence and dark- 
ness again; for in the Ward of the Guardian 
Angel “Sister Pat’s” gentle word was law. 

But Joe’s wits were working free of confus- 
ing fogs now. He could not sleep even at 
Sister Patricia’s command. With wide-open 
eyes he lay with his head upon his soft pillow, 
remembering all things. Slowly but surely the 
past came back to him like a picture unfolding 
gradually in the darkness — the midnight errand, 
the climb up the fire escape, the angry talk, the 
artist’s supper. He had fallen, Bobby had 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


145 


said — missed his foothold and fallen, and they 
had brought him here. 

It was a nice place — “the nicest he had ever 
struck.” The opinion grew upon Joe as the 
days and nights went on and he still lingered in 
the soft bed, with Sister Patricia varying the 
sweet milk with broths and jelly and custard, 
and Bobby’s pale, peaked little face smiling 
from a neighboring pillow, and the white Angel 
watching over all. For a while it tired Joe to 
talk: he could only think. But what busy 
thinking it was, especially at night when all was 
shadow and silence, except Sister Patricia’s soft 
footfall as she paced the ward saying her 
Rosary, and the light of the silver lamp at the 
Angel’s feet! How the old life from which 
he seemed to have slipped stood out clear and 
distinct in that starry gleam ! 

He recalled Gran, Jackie, the old home with 
its rickety stove and smoking lamp, the windy 
comer, old Parley Voo, Mrs. Bryan’s cosy fire- 
side, the fight with Bill Butler, the supper at 
Father More’s. But clearest, strongest, most 
vividly of all came back the memory of that 


146 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


last night when, standing breathless, terror- 
stricken in the dark hallway of the Romaine, he 
had heard the fierce, angry conversation be- 
tween Mr. Louis Lamont and his visitor. The 
words that had been echoing in his mind when 
he fell seemed to sound a constant refrain 
through the long silent hours in the ward of 
the Angel Guardian. Sometimes, when half 
asleep, he fancied they came from the lips of 
the white figure watching in the darkness — 
Lisette, Jacqueline, Mr. Harper, Lamont — 
that was the name shouted at the door when the 
gay crowd came down to call its owner. Louis 
Lamont! It was Mr. Louis Lamont who had 
cursed so dreadfully when the man had asked 
him for money — more money to take the child 
away. 

Louis Lamont, Lisette, Jacqueline, Mr. Har- 
per ! And then the names would sound all over 
again in Sandy Joe’s tired ears. It was as if 
the white-winged Angel, always standing there, 
with the little child clinging to his side, were 
teaching Joe a lesson he must not forget. But 
he was growing stronger now every day. 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


147 


Broths and jellies had given way to chicken and 
chops ; he sat up, wrapped in a soft blue gown, 
and chatted with Bobby, and learned all about 
plaster jackets. Then one morning Sister Pa- 
tricia brought him his own jacket, mended and 
patched, and told him he could now dress up 
and go home. 

‘‘Home! Where is home*?” Joe wondered 
vaguely. Bobby had a mother, who came 
every other day and cried over him. Bobby 
had aunts and cousins, whom Sister Patricia 
found it difficult to repress. Bobby had a home 
in the country, where there were chickens and 
cows and a white horse named Dobbin. There 
were hours of weakness when Bobby wept over 
the plaster jacket and dried his eyes surrepti- 
tiously on the sheet, as plucky boys in plaster 
jackets must. 

“My, but you’re lucky !” he said wistfully, as 
Joe stood beside his bed to say good-bye. 
“Wished it was me going home like you !” 

Sister Patricia patted Bobby’s curly head. 
She knew the only home Bobby would ever see 
was that to which the white Angel must lead. 


148 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


“Be a good boy, Joe,” she said in her kind, 
cheery voice; “and come to see us sometimes. 
And here is something Mr. Wynn left for you. 
He sailed for Italy last week. He told me 
when you got well to give you this to make up 
for the fall you got bringing him his farewell 
supper.” 

She handed a crisp new note to Joe. He 
looked at it and gasped. Twenty dollars — 
twenty dollars ! The other money he had col- 
lected for old Parley Voo had been safely 
pinned in his mended pocket; and this — this 
was all his own. Twenty dollars to begin the 
world anew! Joe felt like a millionaire; and, 
with a grateful good-bye to Sister Patricia, he 
turned a farewell glance at the white-winged 
Angel, who seemed to smile like an old friend 
on him and bid him Godspeed on his boyish 
way. 

“The Lord save us!” Good Mrs. Bryan 
dropped her flatiron with a bang at sight of the 
pale, breathless, eager boy that burst joyously 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


149 


into her kitchen. “Joey lad! Joey! God 
bless you, lad ! It’s I that am glad to see you 
out !” And she flung her motherly arms about 
Joe and sobbed outright. “I was fearing Fd 
never see you again, Joey, they said you were 
so bad. And it was against the rules for any- 
body but bom relatives to see you; so, though 
Fve asked at the door every day for a week, I 
couldn’t get up. And you’re all right again, 
Joey dear^” 

“Fine !” said Joe. “Legs a little shaky yet, 
but they’ll get all right again soon. My, but 
they treated me well ! And the gentleman that 
put me in the hospital left twenty dollars for 
me; so I’m ready to pay up for Jackie, Mrs. 
Bryan, and get her everything she wants.” 

“Jackie!” gasped the good woman. “Jackie 
— I mean Monica Mary! — Sure, Joey darling, 
don’t you know that — ” 

“No, no! What has happened to Jackie 
asked Joe, breathlessly. 

“Sure she’s gone! She was taken away by 
her mother this two weeks back.” 


150 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


“Her mother?” Joe dropped, white and 
trembling, into the nearest chair. “Jackie’s 
mother, Mrs. Bryan?” 

“Her born mother,” repeated Mrs. Bryan, 
sinking into her own rocker in a stress of feel- 
ing she could not restrain. “Sure you may 
know if it was anything but a born mother the 
darling would never have crossed that door; 
for I loved her almost like my own. It was 
her own mother that took her; though, between 
you and me, Joe, it’s a queer mother that would 
leave the bit of a creature like that to go travel- 
ling over the world with any husband ever born. 
But it was her second husband, she said ; and he 
had to go to furrin parts, and he couldn’t be 
troubled with so young a child; and she had 
neither kith nor kin of her own, so she had left 
her with poor Gran, who was decent enough 
in those days.” 

“She was, that’s right!” said Joe, recalling 
the little cottage of five years ago, while his 
head whirled with the sudden shock of Mrs. 
Bryan’s news. Jackie gone — gone from him 
forever ! 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


151 


“Sure I suppose it was all right enough,” said 
Mrs. Bryan, reluctantly; ‘‘and she was a lady- 
like person, I will say, if she was French.” 

“French? Was she French?” asked Joe, 
trying to still the whirl in his head. 

“She has been looking for the child these 
twelve months, she says, and could not get a 
trace of her (which may be Gospel truth, Joey, 
as you know), until she read in the paper of the 
poor old woman’s accident, and then she fol- 
lowed her up. It was the husband that was 
here asking questions the very day you fell.” 

“Jackie’s bad-dream man,” said Joe. 

“Sure he was that, and it was sore against 
her will the little creature went with them,” 
said the good woman tearfully. “But I had 
no right to keep her, I knew. She took to 
neither of them, poor darling! Mr. Pierre 
Rochon nor Mrs. — what was it the man called 
her? Some furrin name — Susette or Lisette.” 

“Lisette !” Joe’s whirling brain suddenly 
seemed to stand still as if steadied by an electric 
shock. “Lisette! Did you say Lisette, Mrs. 
Bryan?” 


152 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


‘‘Sure that was what he called her when she 
took all of a tremble at sight of the child ; and 
he lost his temper with her, as I could see. And 
it was Jacqueline they called the child, though 
I told them she had been christened Monica 
Mary.” 

“Jacqueline — ^Lisette!” interrupted Joe, 

starting to his feet. “Oh, Mrs. Bryan !” 

“Joey, darling, what is it?” For the boy 
stood gasping and shaking like one striving for 
speech. “Joey — God have mercy on us! — are 
you getting bad again? What is it, lad, what 
is it?” 

“They stole her!” cried Joe, with a choking 
sob. “They stole her, Mrs. Bryan! Jackie 
isn’t their little girl at all. A man paid them 
to steal her away — paid them hundreds of dol- 
lars !” 

“Joey, Joey, whisht! Be easy! It’s the 
fever that’s on you again, poor lad! There 
now ! Sit down, dear !” 

“Oh, I can’t — I can’t,” repeated Joe, desper- 
ately. “They stole her, Mrs. Bryan! O 
Jackie, poor little Jackie! Where was that 


IN THE HOSPITAL 


153 


watching angel when he let them steal poor little 
Jackie away?” And Joe turned his face to the 
wall and, for the first time since his mother’s 
death, burst into a wild tempest of sobs and 
tears. 

“Joey, darling, sure they let you out of bed 
too soon ! You’re only dreaming, Joe !” 

“No! no! no!” Joe brushed the tears away, 
and, with a hoarse, passionate sob, turned to the 
bewildered woman. “I’m not dreaming, Mrs. 
Bryan. I heard all about Jacqueline and 
Lisette and Mr. Harper and everything. I 
heard Mr. Lamont swearing and cursing in the 
darkness. I heard them say Gran was dead. I 
heard the man say he would take the child for 
three hundred dollars. They’ve stolen her, 
Mrs. Bryan, they’ve stolen poor little Jackie 
sure. And there’s no one to stand up for her 
but me, and I’m a-going to do it. I’m going to 
find little Jackie, Mrs. Bryan, and take her 
away from the bad-dream man and Lisette. I 
am going to find her and bring her back if — if it 
kills me — kills me dead !” 


CHAPTER XII 

FATHER more’s VISITORS 

HE red glow of the wintry sunset burned 



A through the snow-wreathed pines that 
brushed the wide, silken-curtained window of 
Mrs. Harper’s room. She lay upon her cush- 
ioned couch, very pale and still, looking out 
dreamily at the dying day. Her husband sat 
by her side, smoothing the soft, rippling hair 
back from her temples with the light, tender 
touch that years of loving care gave to his strong 
man’s hand. 

am glad you told me, Phil dear !” she said 
gently. 

“Are you, dearest? Father More thought 
it best for you to know.” 

“Oh, yes! Dear Father More always un- 
derstands. I — I have never been able to think 
of Larchmont; but now — now I can, Phil. I 
can think of it as a beautiful home for poor 
friendless little boys and girls, like those we saw 


FATHER MORWS VISITORS 155 


on the street that day selling papers. That 
poor little girl! I have never forgotten the 
frightened look in her soft brown eyes when she 
lifted them to my face. Oh, I hope the clothes 
made her warm and comfortable, Phil !” 

“They did, I am sure,” said Mr. Harper, “un- 
less that young rascal 'cribbed’ everything for 
himself.” 

“ 'Rascal !’ ” echoed the lady softly. “Oh, 
Phil, there was nothing rascally about that nice 
red-haired boy ! He had one of the best faces 
I ever saw — so honest and kind !” 

“Well, perhaps, dear; though it didn’t strike 
me that way. But no doubt your eyes are 
clearest. He got the money, at all events. So 
you are pleased that Father More is to have 
Larchmont for his little waifs'?” 

“Oh, so pleased, Phil ! I don’t know when 
I have had anything to make me so happy. I 
don’t know why it is, but I have felt happier of 
late — happier even though I am weaker, I 
know.” 

“Nell, Nell !” there was a sharp note of pain 
in the speaker’s tone. “Don’t — don’t be so 


156 FATHER MORE’S VISITORS 


heavenly, Nell ! Stay on with me, if — if you 
can!’’ 

“If — if I can,” she whispered. "‘Ah, I am 
trying; for I love you, Phil — love you dearly, 
my husband ! But I have a strange feeling that 
I shall see our baby soon — our dear little baby 
that the angels are taking care of for me, Phil, 
until — until I come.” 

“My God! No, no! Don’t talk like that, 
Nell!” was the hoarse answer. “You are not 
any worse, only a little weaker. Nell, don’t 
let go and drift away from me, don’t, Nell, 
dorCtr 

“I won’t then — I won’t if I can help it, 
Phil,” she answered, smiling up into his an- 
guished face. “Especially since you have told 
me about Larchmont, I want you to get to work 
right away, and have everything lovely, Phil — 
big rooms and plenty of windows, and nice wide 
porches where the children can run and play, 
and a sun-parlor. I always meant to have a 
sun-parlor on the south front. Oh, Phil, won’t 
you begin right away?” 


FATHER MORELS VISITORS 157 


“Father More and I thought that in the 
spring, Nell — 

“Oh, no! Don’t wait until spring. That 
is too long off. I’d like to have it done before 
— I mean, Pd like you to begin right now, Phil. 
Go to see Father More about it, and ask him 
not to put it off until spring. Go to-morrow, 
please.” 

“And leave you blue and low-spirited like 
this^” he protested. 

“I am not blue and low-spirited,” she said. 
“I am only weak, and it will do me good to 
have that home for the poor little children be- 
gun. See Father More, please, and ask him to 
begin the work right away.” 

And it was in obedience to this gentle com- 
mand that Mr. Phil Harper appeared next eve- 
ning at the rectory of St. Martin’s, and was ad- 
mitted to Father More’s study, where he an- 
nounced his business in the brief, repressed tones 
of one whose heart was too full for lengthy 
speech. 

“In plain terms, Father, Nell feels that she 


158 FATHER MORE'S VISITORS 


is dying and wants the home done before she 
goes.’’ 

“It is not so bad as that, my dear friend!” 
said the priest, striving to speak cheerily. 
“You are too anxious, I think.” 

“Not too anxious, Father. Oh, she is dying 
slowly, surely, patiently, as she knows — as I 
can see. That wound that pierced her tender 
heart has been bleeding all these years until 
life and strength are gone. She told me yester- 
day that she felt that she would see her baby 
soon; so we must get to work. Father, even de- 
spite the snow and ice. She said that she would 
like to see the plans you spoke of, and select one 
herself.” 

“Certainly, certainly,” said Father More. 
“I shall be glad to have her distracted, inter- 
ested. Sit right down there in my big chair 
while I look them up. Light a cigar — you’ll 
find some on the mantel. Keep up a brave 
heart, my friend. I feel that the good God will 
bless your generous charity to His little ones 
in ways we can not foresee — hallo! What’s 
the matter out there?” 


FATHER MORE'S VISITORS 159 


And the speaker’s comforting tone changed to 
one of startled inquiry at the unusual clamor 
that came from the hall without. He flung 
open the door of his study, to confront an ex- 
citing scene. 

Mrs. Mullan, his stout, motherly house- 
keeper, was holding at bay an equally stout, 
motherly visitor, who, with her “widow’s bon- 
net” askew, and its purple flowers waving de- 
fiantly, was striving to force an entrance. 

“Let me by, ma’am — let me by ! I’ve come 
to speak to his reverence ; and, busy or not busy, 
I must see him. He’ll listen to me, I know. 
Let me by !” 

“Not a step farther shall you go!” said Mrs. 
Mullan, her own Celtic spirit rising to the fray. 
“What sort of disrespectable creature are you 
to be breaking in upon the priest like this*? 
It’s mad or intoxicated you must be !” 

“Intoxicated!” echoed the visitor, flaming 
into virtuous wrath. “I never touched a drop 
stronger than tea in all my life. I’ve half a 
mind to pull the cap from your bald head, you 
wicked woman !” 


160 FATHER MORE S VISITORS 


“Tut, tut, tut!’’ said Father More reprov- 
ingly, as he advanced upon the scene of com- 
bat. “My good women, this is most unseemly. 
What is the trouble, Mrs. Mullan? Why, 
why,” recognizing the visitor, “surely it’s Mrs. 
Bryan!” 

“It is, Father, it is!” And the speaker’s 
righteous indignation suddenly broke into tears 
and tremors. “It vexed me more than I could 
say to be turned from the door by that impu- 
dent creature.” 

“There, there, there !” said the priest, anxious 
to avert a reopening of hostilities. “It was al- 
together my fault, Mrs. Bryan. I gave or- 
ders that I was not to be disturbed. But if the 
matter is of serious importance — ” 

“Sure it is, Father. But I’ll ask only a mo- 
ment or two, to keep my brain from turning out- 
right. And I dare not go to anybody else, for 
fear people would think me mad entirely. It’s 
about this boy here. Father,” — and she pulled 
forward a white-faced boy, hitherto screened by 
her ample figure. “He is just out of the hos- 
pital, where he has been lying three weeks with 


FATHER MORE S VISITORS 161 


an injured head; and he’s telling a tale that has 
made my heart faint from the fear and the 
fright of it.” 

“Why, surely I know that boy, too!” said 
Father More, who, despite this rather discour- 
aging introduction, was looking kindly into the 
thin pale face. “Are you not the fine fellow 
that fought for little Micky Fay and that I 
brought home to supper some weeks ago*?” 

“Yes, Father,” and the young face kindled 
at the friendly tone. “Pm Sandy Joe, or that’s 
what the boys call me ; and you treated me fair 
and square. Father; and so when Mrs. Bryan 
said to come to you, I knew you’d treat me 
square again and believe my story.” And the 
honest blue eyes were lifted to Father More 
with an eager trust that touched the priest’s 
warm heart. 

“Come in here and tell it,” he said kindly, 
feeling that in some way the poor lad needed 
quieting; and, to Mrs. Mullan’s suppressed in- 
dignation, he led the two visitors into the study, 
where Mr. Harper sat in the big chair puffing 
his cigar into a glow. 


162 FATHER MORELS VISITORS 


“Excuse me one moment, my dear Harper, 
while I hear this poor boy’s trouble.” 

“Harper?” said Joe, suddenly wheeling 
around. “Harper? Is his name Harper? 
And, geewhillikins, it’s the man I sold the 
paper to, and that gave the money to Billy 
Butler!” 

“Eh — what?” said Mr. Harper, startled. 
“Thunderation ! You are the right boy, sure 
enough! And that other rascal did us out of 
fifteen dollars! George! I ought to have 
known he was not Nell’s little gentleman by one 
look at his face. And so you’re the real chap? 
How is your little sister?” 

Joe’s lip quivered, and in a moment Mrs. 
Bryan burst into an exciting explanation. 

“That’s what brought us here. Father,” — 
turning to the priest. “You remember the 
child, maybe? You baptized her, Monica 
Mary, more than a month ago.” 

“Why, yes, yes, I remember her well — that 
lovely child that so attracted you. Harper,” he 
added aside. “And is she this boy’s sister? I 
thought she had no family, no relatives.” 


FATHER MORE'S VISITORS 163 


“Sure she hadn’t, Father, that I knew of. 
But the boy’s grandmother had her in charge; 
and Joe looked after the little creature, and 
loved her better than if he was her bom 
brother.” 

“And — and. Father, they’ve taken her away! 
They’ve stolen her!” put in Joe, breathlessly. 

“Stolen her?” echoed both gentlemen, in 
amazement. 

“Whist now — whist, Joe !” said Mrs. Bryan. 
“Let me tell the story first to his reverence. 
When the old woman was taken to the hos- 
pital, Joe asked me to care for the child, say- 
ing he’d work for her and pay for her as best 
he could; for she was greatly afraid of the 
asylum — which was where she ought to have 
been, as I said from the first. And then the 
old woman died, and was buried by the town 
— God rest her soul! — and Joe almost broke 
his neck or his head down the fire escape when 
he was taking victuals for a midnight supper. 
Jackie — Monica Mary — was left to me; and, 
though a poor, lone widow, with four of my 
own to raise, I was doing my best for her. 


164 FATHER MORWS VISITORS 


But the father and mother, that left her with 
old Madge Damley when she was an infant, 
came after her two weeks ago, and told me — ’’ 

“They told her lies,’’ broke in Joe, desper- 
ately — “all lies, Father — all lies! They were 
not Jackie’s mother and father at all. I 
heard a man promise to give three hundred dol- 
lars if they’d take her away and never bring 
her back ; and the man’s name was Lamont, and 
he lived in the Romaine. He sent this other 
man and a woman (Lisette) after Jackie, and 
her right name is Jacqueline.” 

Jacqueline! Lisette! Lamont! Philip 
Harper started to his feet, his handsome face 
suddenly ashen. 

“Lamont is Nellie’s cousin; Lisette was — 
was little Jacqueline’s nurse! My God, Fa- 
ther, what does the boy mean?” 

“Harper, my dear friend, be calm! The 
boy is just out of the hospital, remember. He 
does not know what he says.” 

“I do — I do. Father!” cried Joe, passion- 
ately. “Mr. Harper just said he knew those 
persons — Lamont, Lisette, Jacqueline. Isn’t 


FATHER MORE’S VISITORS 165 


that proof enough? How could I dream such 
a thing? And the men talked about you too,” 
— turning his white, desperate face to Mr. Har- 
per. “One said if he took the child to you — 
to Mr. Harper — you would give everything you 
have for her.” 

“Who said it — where — when?” panted Phil 
Harper, grasping Joe’s shoulder. “I would 
give everything I had for — for a child called 
Jacqueline? You heard this, you say? You 
heard it — you heard it? Where — when?” 

The fierce grip, the wild passion of the tone 
for a moment took away Joe’s breath and 
speech, and terrified Mrs. Bryan into tearful 
defence. 

“Sure it’s mad with the fever the poor boy 
is, as I told you. Father! But if you’ll listen 
to him, you may ease his poor mind. Now, 
Joey, tell your story straight through as you 
told it to me.” 

“Yes; sit down here beside me, my boy. 
You see how weak and tremulous he is. Har- 
per. Just out of the hospital, remember, 
where he has been lying unconscious from a 


166 FATHER MORE’S VISITORS 


severe injury to his head. Remember all this, 
my friend, and be calm. Now, my child, go 
on with your story.” 

And Joe, thus reassured, told his story as 
he remembered it — he told it all, beginning 
with the naughty bell-boy that sent him climb- 
ing up to the wrong story of the Romaine, ex- 
plaining how the sudden news of Gran’s death 
had startled him, and then the angry words be- 
hind the curtains that held him a frightened 
and breathless listener. Then Philip Harper 
suddenly started to his feet, pale, hoarse- 
voiced, shaken to his strong man’s soul. 

“My God,” he cried, “this is no fever dream ! 
The boy is telling the truth, Father More — 
the truth. That child — that beautiful little 
child I saw standing under Nell’s memorial 
window— the poor little street-beggar whose 
eyes have followed dear Nell ever since — that 
child — ^great God! — is hers — is mine!” 


CHAPTER XIII 


DARKENED WAYS 

^‘TTarper, in God’s name be calm!” said 
X X Father More, striving to steady his 
own trembling voice into the judicial tones of 
reason. “Remember, I repeat, this poor lad 
is just out of the hospital, where he has been 
lying for weeks with some serious injury to his 
head. This may be only the echoes of some 
story that has reached his ear — all the dis- 
jointed fragments of some fever dream.” 

“Father, no. It is the truth. To me it is 
as clear as daylight,” was the reply. “Louis 
Lamont, the villain — the cursed villain ! Nell 
always distrusted him, shrank from him. It 
was Louis Lamont or his hirelings that fired the 
house, that stole the child. My God, I will go 
to him this moment ! I will tear his guilty se- 
cret from him or kill him where he stands!” 
“Harper, listen to me!” Father More laid 
167 


168 


DARKENED WAYS 


a kind, firm hand upon the desperate man’s 
arm. “You must listen to me for your wife’s 
sake, for your child's sake, — if this story be 
true. O my friend, it is a time for wisdom, for 
prudence, for caution. It is a time to look to 
God for guidance. Remember you must have 
some proof. What can this poor boy show to 
corroborate his wild story*?” 

“Sure nothing, your reverence — ^nothing,” 
sobbed Mrs. Bryan, whose nerves were failing 
rapidly. “Sorra a thing has he to show but 
these few little articles that he took from the old 
woman’s trunk, and that she once told him were 
the child’s. Sorra a thing has he but these few 
bits of clothes.” 

The speaker pulled out a bundle from under 
her shawl and displayed the little white coat 
and cap and frilled dress with the golden pins. 

Philip Harper caught them from her shaking 
hand, with a low cry that was half a sob. 

“They were hers,” he said hoarsely — “our 
baby’s ! I myself bought those little gold pins 
on her first birthday. The monogram. Father, 
look at it! I had it designed myself to please 


DARKENED WAYS 


169 


Nell: M. J. H. (Marie Jacqueline Harper.) 
That woman, that traitorous nurse, in the con- 
fusion, in the darkness, fled with the child to 
safety. There was no question, no suspicion 
to betray the devilish deed. My God, I see 
it all. Father, I see it all !” And, strong man 
that he was, Philip Harper sank back into the 
great chair from which he had started in his 
first excitement, white and shaken, and weak 
as a feeble girl. 

“Ochone! it’s killed entirely the poor man 
is!” said Mrs. Bryan, tremulously, as Father 
More hurriedly poured out a glass of wine 
for his half-fainting guest. ‘‘Maybe it will 
hearten him up, your reverence, to hear we have 
track of that miserable devil Lisette. Joey has 
a clue to her, but I wouldn’t let him folly it 
up until I had spoken to you. Father, fearing 
the poor boy would be caught in some trap. 
Speak up, Joey, and tell the gentleman about 
the old witch that you were working for when 
you got the fall.” 

“La Vielle, sir,” said Joe, breathlessly — “La 
Vielle. I worked for her and old Parley Voo; 


170 


DARKENED WAYS 


and when I went to-day to take them the 
money I had when I was hurt, he told me La 
Vielle had gone to Lisette, her granddaughter, 
who was sick — who had been taken very sick 
just as she was going to sail back to France. 
She was now away down in the country with 
no one to take care of her, so La Vielle had to 
go. Lisette had a child, he said — a little girl.” 

“Where?” said Mr. Harper, starting up, 
flushed and eager. “Where did the woman 
go? Tell me quick, boy — quick!” And he 
laid a shaking hand on Joe’s shoulder. 

“She went to Clifton, sir.” 

“Clifton!” echoed Harper, hoarsely — “Clif- 
ton, Long Island?” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Joe. “She got a let- 
ter, old Parley Voo said, to come to Clifton in 
the cars, and he — Lisette’s husband — would 
meet her.” 

“Clifton?” repeated the gentleman again. 
“The station for Larchmont! My God, Fa- 
ther, am I mad or dreaming? But I must go 
at once. I must follow this woman, whoever 
she is, and find for myself what this story 


BARKENED WAYS 


171 


means. And you must go with me, my boy !” 

But here good Mrs. Bryan, mistaking the sit- 
uation, broke into eager and tearful defence. 

“Sorra a step the lad will go, if it means 
hurt or harm to him!” she burst forth indig- 
nantly. “Why, he’s suffered so much, stand- 
ing up for darling little Jackie from first to 
last! He’s been father and mother and sister 
and brother to the child ever since she could 
walk. ‘Keep her’ says he to me, ‘keep her, 
Mrs. Bryan; and I will work for her and pay 
for her.’ And he hadn’t a whole rag to his own 
back. And he did work for her. Father, he 
did it like the brave, honest boy he is. Didn’t 
he bring the darling every penny he earned to 
buy her bit and sup*? Didn’t he watch over 
her as if he was God’s angel from the skies ^ 
And now sorra a step shall he go to meet pun- 
ishment or blame !” 

“My dear Mrs. Bryan, no,” said Father 
More, soothingly. “He shall have no blame or 
punishment in any case; on the contrary, if 
there is truth in this strange story — ” 

“If there is truth in it,” broke in Philip Har- 


172 


DARKENED WAYS 


per, with kindling eyes, “if there is truth in 
your story, boy, all that you can ask from me 
or mine shall be yours. Father More, you will 
come with us. We need your prudence, your 
wisdom; for I can not trust myself to-night. 
When I think that perhaps Nell’s child — ” his 
voice broke hoarsely. 

“There, my dear friend!” said the priest, 
s)anpathetically. “Try to be calm, I beg. I 
will go with you as you ask and though — 
though I dare not give you hope, we will sift 
this story through and through.” 

And, all doubt and fears for Joe’s safety thus 
removed, Mrs. Bryan was satisfied to see him 
depart with the two gentlemen, who hurried 
him off, weak and bewildered as he still was, 
into the gathering winter twilight. 

But it was a journey such as Sandy Joe had 
never even dreamed of ; for soft-cushioned cabs 
and palace-cars were experiences hitherto un- 
known. As he whirled away, nestling in deli- 
cious warmth and light, he might have thought 
he was still in a fever dream, but for the eager 
questioning of his fellow-travelers that kept 


DARKENED WAYS 


173 


him very wide awake. He had to go over his 
story again and again, and each time it seemed 
to grow straighter and clearer to his listeners’ 
ears. Then, as they wanted to know more 
and more, he told them, in his honest, boyish 
way, all he knew of little Jackie’s life: of the 
night that Gran was hurt; of all that she had 
said to her unseen visitor on the wall; how he 
had tried to keep little Jackie from the dreaded 
asylum ; how good Mrs. Bryan had been to her ; 
of the last time he had seen her, when she 
had been so afraid of the ‘‘bad-dream man,” 
and had shown him her new shoes and her red 
frock. 

When he had finished, Philip Harper’s 
strong .hand rested on his ragged shoulder, and 
Philip Harper’s voice spoke in new tones in his 
ear: 

“My boy — ^my brave, true, tender boy! Fa- 
ther, there is truth in every word he speaks. 
And, whatever this night brings to me, this 
boy’s future shall be my care. We will make 
him the man he should be — a noble man.” 

“I think the good God has saved you that 


174 


DARKENED WAYS 


trouble, my friend,” answered Father More, 
quietly. “But still you may help in His work 
as we weak mortals can.” 

And then the cars stopped, and the three 
travelers stepped out at the little village sta- 
tion, with the usual crowd of commuters from 
the great city not thirty miles away. 

“How everything has changed and grown !” 
said Mr. Harper, in a low voice. “I should 
scarcely know the place. Ah, there at least is 
a familiar form!” as a bent and wizened old 
figure shuffled painfully along the platform. 
“Uncle Jeff, don’t you know me?” 

“De Lawd! — de Lawd awmighty!” cried 
Uncle Jeff, nearly toppling over on his uncer- 
tain footing in delighted surprise. “Ef it ain’t 
Marse Phil Happer hisself! Well, ef dis 
won’t beat old Nance out! Marse Phil, how 
is yer, sah, how is yer? And how is dat dar 
angel woman. Miss Nell?” 

“Not very well. Uncle Jeff,” answered the 
gentleman, briefly. “And old Aunt Nance? 
How is she? I hope she is with you still?” 

“Wal, yes, Marse Phil, she is; but she is 


DARKENED WAYS 


175 


mouty poorly, mouty poorly indeed. She’s had 
de warning, sah; and when cullud folks gets 
de warning dey don’t stay long. Why, bress 
de Lawd!” Uncle Jeff’s dim eyes fell upon 
the priestly form beside Mr. Harper, “ef dar 
ain’t de pahson too! How is yer, pahson, 
how is yer^ I’s been a thinking and wishing 
for yer, pahson, shuah!” 

“Wishing for me?” said Father More, in 
some surprise. 

“Yes, sah, yes!” Uncle Jeff leaned both 
hands on his crooked stick and became confi- 
dential. “It’s ob them sperrits we was talk- 
ing ’bout when you was here. You ’lowed 
you’d scatter ’em off Larchmont; but dey’s 
wusser than ever, pahson, wusser than ever. 
Nance has had three warnings, and she’s tuk to 
her bed to die.” 

“To die?” echoed Mr. Harper. “Oh, I 
hope not !” And, though he was in a hurry to 
be off on his search, he paused to listen to poor 
old Jeff’s trouble, with the kind sympathy that 
had made these “good white people” linger so 
brightly in the old man’s fading memories. 


176 


DARKENED WAYS 


“Yes, sah, — yes, Marse Phil, ole Nance done 
tuk to her bed to die. She had de last warn- 
ing ’bout three days ago, sah; so she sent me 
up to town dis ebening to see ’bout de coffin. 
She want to be shuah ob de fit and all befo’ she 
goes. She’d like it sort ob cushiony and com- 
f’able, so she can lie easy alter all de work and 
worrit she’s had here.” 

“But what does the doctor say*?” asked Mr* 
Harper, rather dismayed at such practical meas- 
ures. “Has he given her up*?” 

“No, sah, no,” answered Jeff, gloomily. 
“We ain’ had no doctor. No sort ob use in 
having a doctor when you gits de warning like 
Nance. You see, it was dis way, Marse Phil. 
Nance alius had a temper, a debbil ob a tem- 
per, sah, I has to allow. Many a time I’s had 
to dodge de flatirons and rolling-pins myself. 
And she got pizen mad dat last day up at your 
house, pizen mad agin dat dar black-eyed nuss 
Lisette.” 

“Lisette !” echoed the gentleman, in a startled 
tone, “Lisette again.” 

“Yes, sah, dat dar dark-eyed, meddlesome 


DARKENED WAYS 


177 


Lisette. Nance and her had hot words dat 
last day ’bout de baby’s laundry. Miss Nell 
wasn’t round to settle things, and Nance’s tem- 
per riz to de boil.” Uncle Jeff shifted his 
stick and lowered his voice. don’t mind 
telling yer now, Marse Phil, as long as de ole 
woman has tuk to her bed to die. But she had 
lamed some powerful conjure spells from her 
old grandmother; and dat day, when she was 
so pizen mad, she crooked her fingers and 
crossed her eyes and put one of dem spells on 
Lisette. De girl burned to deaf dat night, sah ; 
and her sperrit nachally has been pestering 
Nance eber since. Fust it was only when she 
was asleep and dreaming; but now, sah — now, 
Marse Phil — she’s seen her three times, wif her 
wide-awake eyes, dis last month.” 

“Ah, she has?” And Father More, who had 
been listening with a quiet smile, took up the 
conversation with sudden interest. “Your old 
woman saw Lisette’s spirit three times? When 
and where?” 

“Fust time ’twar in de street here after dark, 
pahson. She jest sort ob breshed by like a cold 


178 


DARKENED WAYS 


wind and was gone; and de next time ’twar 
going long de Hill Road. Nance was gather- 
ing breshwood in de bushes, and de sperrit come 
walking slow and solemn, and crying as if her 
heart would break; and de third time was de 
wust ob all, for it done Nance up for shuah. 
You see, pahson, Nance and me is powerful 
fond of oysters; and, me being so crippled, I 
can’t get on very spry; so she goes down to de 
shore what use to belong* to Larchmont, and 
rakes up all we want, when it gits a bit dusky, 
so dar is no meddlesome folks to see. And 
you know dat old watch-house down by de pint, 
Marse Phil?” 

“The Old Light?” said Mr. Harper. “I 
thought it was in ruins years ago.” 

“Yes, sah, most in ruination, as you say. 
Folks is mouty skeered ob it; but de oysters is 
fine, ’cause dey lets ’em grow. ’Twas in dat 
bad-luck place Nance saw Lisette standing by 
de broken window, wif her eyes all sunk in 
black hollows, and her face col’ and white as 
de buried dead. Saw her plain and true not 
three days ago.” 


DARKENED WAYS 


179 


“You know the place of which he speaks 
asked Father More in a low tone of Mr. Har- 
per. 

“The Old Light, yes. But I can not see 
what — ” began Mr. Harper. 

“Nor I,” said Father More. “But I have 
been praying for guidance in this perplexing 
matter. And I think, perhaps, Joe,” he laid 
a hand on the shoulder of the boy who stood 
beside him, a wondering listener to old Jeff’s 
story, “I think perhaps those angels we once 
talked of may be leading us through darkened 
ways. I think, my dear Harper, it would be 
well for us to look up that restless spirit at the 
Old Light.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 

D ull and monotonous beat the winter 
waves about the Old Light, their white- 
caps stretching out into the gathering darkness 
until they met the leaden twilight sky. The 
tower that had held the Old Light had toppled 
into hopeless ruin years ago; but the granite 
base, built to withstand wind and storm, still 
stood half buried in the shifting sands, above 
which the broken windows seemed to peer like 
the eyes of some old sea monster stranded in the 
dreary waste. 

A faint light glimmered in one of the win- 
dows to-night, a window left open to give air 
to the sufferer lying white and weak upon the 
wretched couch within the bare, cheerless room. 
A fire of driftwood burned on the blackened 
hearth; and over it bent an old witch-like fig- 
ure, with a yellow kerchief tied over her wigged 

X80 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 181 


head, while her crooked fingers stirred the pot 
of savory broth simmering over the glowing em- 
bers. 

''BienT said La Vielle, pouring some of it 
into a cup and bringing it to her patient’s bed- 
side. “It is good; it will make you stronger, 
my poor Lisette! Try to eat.” 

“Grandmere, no, no, I can not!” was the 
faint answer. “Ah, you are good to me, so 
good! But I can not. Oh, I am wild with 
fear and pain and guilt. Where is the child, 
grandmere?” 

“Pouf for the child!” said the old woman, 
gruffly. “She is safe enough. It is for you 
I have come to this hole of a place. You must 
eat or you will die.” 

“Oh, I know, I know!” was the shuddering 
answer. “Die with my sins upon me! Die 
unforgiven, unabsolved ! Die and be lost for- 
ever — lost, lost !” The last word was a sob of 
despair. “Oh, my God, if I could only see a 
priest !” 

“A priest!” echoed La Vielle. “It must be, 
indeed, the fever madness that is on thee, Li- 


182 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 


sette. A priest here ! Pierre would foam with 
rage at the word, as you know.” 

“Oh, I know, I know!” gasped the sick 
woman, faintly. “I must die as I have lived. 
And the child, grandmere? What will Pierre 
do with the child — a devil like Pierre My 
God! My God!” 

A terrible fit of coughing broke the despair- 
ing cry, and left the wretched woman white and 
faint and almost speechless in her old grand- 
mother’s withered arms. 

But, despite her qudtre-vingt ans^ La Vielle 
was still an expert nurse as well as cook. She 
had brought a cordial of her own make; and, 
pouring a few drops of it between the suffer- 
er’s livid lips, she revived and soothed her into 
sleep. Then, taking a bowl of the broth in one 
hand, she picked up the flaring candle in the 
other; and, slowly hobbling over the rough 
floor, she lifted the old canvas sail that served 
as partition to a smaller room, where, crouch- 
ing in the one narrow window, whose dull light 
broke the otherwise inky darkness, a little 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 183 

trembling figure was outlined against the leaden 
sky. 

'‘Ek, hien^ where art thou‘?” said La Vielle, 
blinking around. ‘'Petite peste^ mechante^ 
where art thou? Come! Here is thy supper 
now. Eat, and then go to sleep. I have put a 
blanket in the corner for a bed.” 

The small figure slipped from the window, 
and little Jackie, her soft brown eyes wide with 
terror, caught La Vielle’s skirt. 

“Oh, no, no! I am afraid — I am afraid!” 
she sobbed. “It’s so black and lonely, and 
there are rats in the wall. Oh, I won’t make 
any noise, I won’t even whisper, if you’ll let 
me go in there with Mamma Lisette.” 

“Thou wouldst sleep with her, with the dy- 
ing,” said the old woman, sharply, “and take 
the death from her? Little fool ! No, no, no, 
thou must not go in ! It will only madden her 
more to see thee, little curse that thou art! 
Thou must stay in here.” 

“Oh, please, please, please!” sobbed Jackie, 
piteously. “She always let me sleep with her 


184 AT THE OLD LIGHT 


until you came, and I won’t make any noise. 
Oh, it is so dark and lonely and cold !” 

And the little speaker burst into despairing 
tears that she could no longer restrain. But 
there was no Joe to comfort, no friendly Mrs. 
Bryan to soothe her now. Instead, La Vielle’s 
crooked fingers clutched the tender shoulder 
fiercely. 

“Hush ! hush ! Is she not mad with the fear 
and pain now*? Hush, I say, or I will shut thee 
in the black cellar below, where the rats will 
eat out thine eyes before day. There, there! 
Poor girl, she is calling again !” 

And, as a faint moan came from the other 
room. La Vielle thrust the bowl of soup on the 
window-sill, and, snatching up her flaring can- 
dle, hobbled hurriedly back to her patient’s 
side ; leaving the poor little prisoner of the Old 
Light still smarting from her tigerish grip; for 
La Vielle was suffering herself to-night with 
strange, half-forgotten mother-grief and pain. 
This wild, wayward Lisette had been left to her 
by her only daughter thirty years ago; and she 
had reared her as her own until, in early girl- 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 185 


hood, impatient of French restraint, she had 
broken away. 

Jackie set aside the bowl untouched, though 
a few moments before she had been thinking 
longingly of Mrs. Bryan’s bread and butter. 
She was now too choked to eat even La Vielle’s 
savory broth. She huddled up again in the 
low window, well set in the stone wall to pro- 
tect it from wind and storm; and, with her 
wan little face pressed against the cracked, cob- 
webbed glass, peered through fast-falling tears 
into the deepening darkness. 

How long she had been in this dreadful 
place Jackie was not mathematician enough to 
count. At first it had not been quite so bad; 
for the black-eyed “mamma” who had brought 
her here had talked and sung and played with 
her; and, although it had all been in a queer, 
wild way, altogether unlike Mrs. Bryan’s moth- 
erly methods, some vague memory seemed to 
waken in the little girl’s mind, as if she had 
really known this new, chattering “mamma” 
in some dim long ago. But for the dark-faced 
man who called himself her “papa” she could 


186 AT THE OLD LIGHT 


feel only dislike and fear. She always trem- 
bled at his coming, and was glad when he 
went away. As the black-eyed “mamma” had 
explained — when Jackie had cried so bitterly 
at losing dear Mrs. Bryan and Molly and Nora 
and Pat and Baby Ann, and above and before 
all her own Joe — they were going to sail away 
over these wide waters to a beautiful land, 
where Jackie would wear lace frocks and blue 
ribbons, and have a new doll every day. 

But the lace frocks and blue ribbons and 
new doll had not yet appeared; and in the 
meantime the old house by the water got colder 
and drearier, and the black-eyed “mamma” 
weaker and weaker, and the dark-faced “papa” 
darker-faced every day. And yesterday — was 
it yesterday poor little Jackie had quite 
lost count of time — this old woman with the 
crooked fingers had come ; this ugly old woman, 
who was even crosser and older and uglier than 
Gran. So thought the poor little girl as she 
peered out into the wild, darkening waste, 
where there was no light on earth or sea, not 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 187 


even the blinking lights of Squatter Town to 
break the gloom. 

And the sky? Jackie lifted her soft brown 
eyes hopelessly. Where was the beautiful sky, 
the heaven, of which she had learned at Mrs. 
Bryan's, where dwelt the good God whom she 
must call ‘'our Father," and who sent His beau- 
tiful angels to take care of little girls? Oh, if 
one of those white-winged angels of whom Joe 
had once told her would take care of her now, 
it was so dark and she was so afraid! And 
Jackie dropped on her knees, as she had seen 
Molly and Nora do every night, and tried to 
remember the little prayer they had always 
said last before they went to sleep. “Angel of 
God," it began that way, Jackie knew, “Angel 
of God, who art my guardian, watch over me, 
protect me, defend me from all evil spirits, and 
all—" 

The faltered words died upon the little girl’s 
lips, and she sprang to her feet in terror as a 
thundering knock sounded through the house, 
and the voice of the dark-faced “papa" rose in 


188 AT THE OLD LIGHT 


angry dispute with the old woman who ad- 
mitted him. They were talking in French, but 
the fierce tones Chilled the little listener’s soul. 

“The child, — the child (Jackie had 
learned that Venfant was the “papa’s” name 
for her, and her heart leaped wildly at the 
word.) “Where is the child? I must take her 
away with me — quick, old woman !” 

“Wretch, villain, dog, devil, that thou art!” 
burst forth La Vielle, in motherly fury. “Dost 
thou not know that thy wife is dying? What 
is the child to us now? Begone or be still, I 
tell you, begone or be still!” 

“Idiot! fool!” came the hoarse, gasped an- 
swer. “The child, quick! They are coming 
— Harper and the rest — with a search warrant 
for her. They are behind me now ! I am lost, 
betrayed! Give me the child! I will defy 
them all — all!” 

“Angel” was surely a new role for fierce La 
Vielle to play; but, with her mother-love 
roused in her old heart, she held her ground as 
“angel” now. 

“Nay, thou shalt not go in and torture 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 189 


Lisette more. Devil that thou art, thou shalt 
not, Pierre Rochon ! She shall die in peace.” 

“Let her die as she will!” cried the other, 
with an oath. “Give me the child. I can 
reach the water with her before — before — ” 
“Pierre! Pierre!” rose the dying woman’s 
wild cry. “No, no, no, in God’s name, no! 
Jacqueline, ma petite Jacqueline P’ 

That last, despairing cry was too much for 
Jackie. Maddened with fear of some unseen 
danger within, she flung open the low, loose- 
fastened window and sprang out, she knew not 
where. But not into the dreadful darkness she 
had feared. Lights were shining just beyond, 
men were talking. Breathless with her wild 
leap, with her wilder terror, Jackie paused to 
hear. 

“You go first, my lad,” said a deep voice. 
“We don’t want any trouble if we can help it*. 
You know the old woman. Speak to her 
softly. You need fear nothing; we are right 
behind you. We’ll take care of you.” 

“All right, sir. I ain’t fearing nothing with 
Jackie in there, you bet !” 


190 AT THE OLD LIGHT 


Joe! Poor little Jackie’s breath and wits 
almost left her. Joe! Oh, it could not be! 
She was asleep and dreaming. That couldn’t 
be Joe coming straight up through the dark- 
ness with a lantern swinging above his head! 
That couldn’t be her Joe! But, oh, it was — 
it was! 

“Jackie !” the lantern dropped crashing to the 
ground as, with a rapturous cry, the child 
sprang forward into Joe’s outstretched arms. 

“Jackie, my own little Jackie!”' And in 
that first glad moment Sandy Joe recognized 
no divided claim. “Here she is, sir! Here 
she is ! But how she got out here only the an- 
gels know. Here is your little Jackie safe and 
sound, sir!” 

“My child — ^my little child — Nell’s child !” 
There was no doubt or question in the strong, 
deep voice. Little Jackie was caught in her 
father’s arms and pressed to her father’s heart, 
and the work to which the good angels had 
guided Sandy Joe was done. 

But there was other work to be done at the 
Old Light — work in which Joe and Jackie 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 191 


were too young and happy to take part. The 
dark-faced papa, who had so terrified Jackie, 
made his escape in the darkness and was never 
heard of more. There was no need of his con- 
viction or confession ; for poor Lisette was left 
to tell all — not only to Father More, who 
brought the comfort and peace for which she 
had prayed; but to Mr. Harper and the officer 
of the law who had accompanied him to the Old 
Light. 

She told how Louis Lamont, enraged at the 
loss of his expected inheritance, had plotted 
with his convict valet, then Lisette’s lover, to 
remove the little child who stood between him 
and Madame Jacqueline’s princely fortune. 
At first they had proposed that some cleverly- 
contrived ‘"accident” should dispose of the lit- 
tle Jacqueline effectually; for, by the old Ma- 
dame’s will, if the child died before she was 
eighteen, the property would revert to the legal 
heirs, the Lamonts. 

But Lisette, dominated though she was by 
her wicked lover, passionately refused to let her 
nursling come to any bodily harm; and, as the 


192 AT THE OLD LIGHT 


child’s disappearance in any other way would 
have roused world-wide search, Pierre Rochon, 
with devilish cunning, suggested the fire that 
would destroy all hope for the parents, and 
enable Lisette to escape with the little Jacque- 
line to the beach, where he could meet them in 
a boat and conceal them until the first alarm 
of the tragic event was over. Afterward, when 
Louis Lamont had paid them their price, and 
Lisette and Pierre were married, Lisette still 
pleaded to keep the child; but her husband 
fiercely refused the burden, and they had left 
the little Jacqueline with Gran, as our story 
has told. 

But God’s curse had followed their evil do- 
ing, as poor Lisette declared. They lost their 
ill-gotten gains ; Pierre turned into such wicked 
ways that the wretched wife, broken in spirit 
and health, was glad to accede to his proposi- 
tion to return to America to draw more money 
for the child’s care from Louis Lamont. How 
he worked upon that gentleman’s guilty fear, 
how he obtained possession of little Jackie, for 


AT THE OLD LIGHT 193 

whom Lisette had still a nurse’s tenderness, we 
know. 

They had taken shelter at the Old Light 
for convenience as well as safety. It was a 
place that had been shunned for years, since 
the last keeper had died by his own hand ; and 
when Pierre had found his wife ailing he had 
persuaded her to take the child there, until the 
little wine schooner, in which he had bar- 
gained for cheap passage, could evade the cus- 
toms, and, casting anchor just below the Old 
Light, take them on board. Neither Lisette’s 
illness nor death would have saved little 
Jacqueline from the cruel Pierre’s guardianship, 
if the good angels and Joe had not intervened. 
But in the broken stories Joe had heard he had 
caught the angel’s whisper, for which, in his 
simple, untaught way, he had prayed, and had 
been guided aright. 

“My little girl — ^my little girl !” 

It seemed as if Philip Harper could never 
weary of the new music in the words as, with 
his arm clasping his recovered treasure, the 


194 AT THE OLD LIGHT 


whole happy party drove away from the Old 
Light, leaving La Vielle ample means to care 
for the poor dying Lisette. 

‘‘My little girl and” (stretching out a kind, 
strong hand to Joe) “my brave, true boy. 
But, Father, Father!” And he turned to Fa- 
ther More, his shining eyes darkening with a 
new fear. “How shall I tell her mother^ 
How can I break the news to Nell that her child 
lives — lives? My God, I am afraid in her 
weakened state she can not bear it ! The shock, 
the Joy, will kill her outright.” 


CHAPTER XV 


' AT LAST 

N OW, who would dare break the won- 
drous news to Nell? It was the ques- 
tion with which all Pinehurst was athrill. 
Even the venturesome little birds, planning 
their nests in the cedar boughs, seemed to catch 
the tremor in the air, and burst into soft twit- 
terings of joy and fear. For while the family 
council, with stately Grandmamma Harper at 
its head, held excited discussion below, Nell 
lay on her couch upstairs, white and frail as a 
lily whose snowy petals would scatter at a 
touch. Only last week the doctor had warned 
Mr. Harper that, in his wife’s weakened state, 
he must beware of the slightest shock to her. 
And big Phil Harper, in all the strength of his 
love and joy, trembled, too, at the thought of 
what the shock of rapture might mean. 

"T should blunder over it and kill Nell, I 
195 


196 


AT LAST 


know,’’ he said in a shaken voice. ‘Tfou could 
go about it better, mother.” 

But though Grandmamma Harper had 
learned all the wisdom taught in the old and 
new schools, she was, for once in her sixty years, 
unequal to the occasion. 

“Do not ask me, Phil,” she said helplessly, 
shaking her handsome old silvered head. “I 
simply can not!” 

Nor could Aunt Aline just now. Shut up in 
her room, that poor lady was striving to bear 
up under the revelation of her son’s guilt, 
which all Philip Harper’s generous sympathy 
could not keep from her. 

“Corinne, Corinne, the shock of it all will 
kill poor Nell, I know !” she sobbed. “And the 
sin will be upon my wretched, wretched boy !” 

“O mamma, no, no !” Corinne’s brave young 
voice trembled as she tried to comfort her. 
“Bear up, mamma darling; though how Louis 
could bring such sorrow, such shame on us all 
I can not — can not see. And Phil is so good, 
so noble to him even now. He has telegraphed 
him money to take the next steamer to Europe. 


AT LAST 


197 


He will hush everything up as best he can, for 
our sake. O mamma, let us pray that all may 
come right in spite of this dreadful, shameful 
wrong; that dear Nell may be spared to her 
husband and child ! Her child ! Try to think 
of the rapture of that word to poor Nell ! Her 
own child!” 

“Have you seen the child, Corinne*?” faltered 
the lady through her tears. 

“Oh, yes, yes! Madame Harper brought 
the dear little thing with her this morning — 
the loveliest little creature you ever saw, with 
NelPs hair and Phil’s own brown eyes. You 
would know them at a glance. Madame Har- 
per broke down at sight of her, and cried like 
a child; and Grace and Elise are just ‘daft,’ 
and I don’t wonder. She is a perfect beauty, 
in spite of all that she has gone through; but 
so bewildered, poor little tot, with a strange 
grandmother and aunts and everybody hugging 
and kissing and crying over her! They say 
that she just clings to that big rough street boy, 
that found her for Phil, as if he were father, 
mother and everything else to her. They had 


198 


AT LAST 


to bring him here with her this morning; they 
could not bribe her, with French dolls or candies 
or anything, to let go his hand'. As Elise says, 
the Harpers and all their millions are not ‘in it’ 
with ‘Sandy Joe.’ ” 

Meanwhile the little subject of all this ex- 
cited discussion had been domiciled for the time 
by her perturbed family in the great conserva- 
tories; her faithful Joe still on guard — Joe, 
who seemed, amid all these lightning changes, 
the one true, sure thing in Jackie’s dissolving 
world; Joe, who, in his tom shoes and patched 
jacket, was guiding her now through labyrinths 
of beauty and bloom as simply as he had guided 
her through the bleak wintry streets two 
months ago; Joe, who had been warned by an 
excited bevy of lovely ladies that Jackie’s 
mamma was very ill upstairs, and that she must 
be kept down here among the flowers until the 
doctor should come and decide if it was safe 
for mother and child to meet just yet. So, a 
little awe-stmck by this view of the situation, 
for the lovely ladies had been tearfully im- 
pressive, Joe was doing guardian duty still. 


AT LAST 


199 


“Look out there, Jackie! That rosebush is 
full of thorns that will tear your pretty frock. 
And if you hold that fine doll like that, you’ll 
break her sure. Put her head up.” 

“O Joe, look at those flowers, those lovely 
white flowers! Do you think we could pick 
some?” asked Jackie breathlessly, as she 
righted her unaccustomed treasure at Joe’s com- 
mand. 

“I guess you can. The lady — I don’t know 
whether she is your grandmother or aunt — said 
to let you do as you pleased until they called 
for you. My, there’s a lot of pretty ladies 
looking out for you now, Jackie; and they’ve 
dressed you up fine, sure” (for grandmamma 
and aunties had costumed the little girl with 
dainty simplicity from top to toe). “Better let 
me pick them flowers for you, so you won’t get 
your grand clothes dirty or wet.” 

And, with the same watchful care that had 
protected Jackie in the old shanty of Squatter 
Town, Joe proceeded to pluck the Annunciation 
lilies that grew tall and white in the rich, moist 
earth. 


200 


AT LAST 


Meanwhile, all unconscious of the tender 
anxiety that was filling the hearts of all who 
loved her, Mrs. Harper lay among the silken 
pillows of her couch, looking dreamily out of 
the broad window at the little birds twitter- 
ing in the cedar boughs near by. It was early 
for nest-building, she thought with a little 
pang, as she remembered her own nest-building 
in the happy long ago. Ah, well, that was all 
over ! Perhaps that lost nest had taught her to 
use the wings that seemed bearing her up 
nearer and nearer every day to the little child 
that her Heavenly Father had taken home. 
Her sweet baby! She felt that she would see 
her soon ; and then — then how short, how 
slight would seem these darkened years of loss 
and pain! 

Her eyes turned, as they often did now, to 
the oratory in the corner where the red light 
shone before the bleeding Heart of her Lord. 
Ah, Corinne had forgotten to put fresh flowers 
there to-day! The lilies of yesterday were 
quite faded. Dear, heedless Corinne! Prob- 


AT LAST 


201 


ably there had been a letter from Italy, where 
her artist lover, Maurice Wynn, was wander- 
ing, that had distracted pretty Corinne from her 
usual pious cares. There should be fresh lilies 
every day before the Sacred Heart, and surely 
she was strong enough to make that little of- 
fering still. Dear Aunt Norinne would scold 
if she found her wandering around; but it was 
only a few steps down the backstairs to the con- 
servatory, and no one need know. 

“Really, I am not quite dying yet !” thought 
the gentle invalid, with a faint smile, as she 
rose from her couch and, with her dainty soft 
negligee trailing over the carpet, took her noise- 
less way down the stairs to the “winter garden” 
that stretched warm and green and blooming be- 
low. 

Softly she opened the door, and then paused, 
amazed, indignant. The lilies, — the beautiful 
lilies ! Right before her was a rough boy, in a 
patched jacket, holding the very last snowy 
petal led bloom. 

“Why, you bad, bad boy!” she began, warm- 


202 


AT LAST 


ing up into sudden strength and spirit at such 
juvenile outlawry. “Who let you in here to 
steal flowers like this?” 

"'Stealing, ma’am!” Joe looked up to con- 
front another “lovely lady” in the soft laces 
and ribbons and trailing gown that made them 
all seem so bewilderingly alike to his untrained 
eye. “I — I ain’t stealing. They are for 
Jackie here. You — they — somebody said to 
give her anything she wanted.” 

“Jackie!” echoed the lady, recognizing with 
a start the sandy head and honest face of 
the young merchant of the windy comer. 
“Jackie!” she repeated, as her eye fell on the 
little white-robed vision that emerged from the 
flowering oleander at his side. “Why — why, 
it’s that lovely little brown-eyed girl again! 
O you darling, you darling ! Who dressed her 
up like this and brought her to see me? Phil ! 
Of course it’s like one of his dear tricks. You 
little brown-eyed darling!” And a soft flush 
came into the lady’s cheek as she sank down on 
a rustic bench under the oleander, and drew 
Jackie into a tender encircling arm. 


AT LAST 


203 


Something in the loving clasp was so reassur- 
ing that the little one nestled closer to this 
lovely lady, whom neither Joe nor Jackie recog- 
nized in her invalid negligee as the beautiful 
fur-robed lady of two months ago. Nor did 
Joe dream of associating this graceful presence 
with the very ill mamma so anxiously guarded 
upstairs. She was simply another of the lovely 
beings that seemed to belong to Jackie’s new 
life. 

‘‘And you have a doll, too!” continued Mrs. 
Harper, the long-silent mother-tone thrilling in 
voice and heart as she recognized this further 
proof of Phil’s tenderness. “Such a beauti- 
ful doll!” She drew the child closer to her 
heart. “O you poor little darling, it seems 
dreadful to give you a glimpse of all this and 
then — let you go !” 

“But I’m not going!” said Jackie, who felt 
this last experience to be altogether satisfactory. 
“I’m going to stay here always; ain’t I, Joe?” 

“Always?” repeated the lady, smiling a little 
sadly into the brown eyes lifted so trustfully to 
her own. 


204 


AT LAST 


“Always !” re-echoed Jackie, who, bewildered 
as she was by all the claims upon her, had 
taken in some facts clearly. “I am going to 
stay here always with my beautiful mamma, 
who lost me when I was a little baby only two 
years old. It has made her heart sick and 
broken ; but now I have come back, and she will 
get well again.” 

“What — what does she mean*?” said the 
lady, faintly. 

“That she is going to stay here all right and 
straight enough, ma’am,” laughed Joe. 

“Why — ^how? I don’t understand.” The 
color was coming and going in the speaker’s 
face; but the little head nestling so trustfully 
on her heart seemed to still its startled flutter ; 
the brown eyes — oh, whose glance was it those 
soft brown eyes recalled*? “Phil — Mr. Harper 
has adopted her, you mean?” And she shrank 
at the thought, with paling face. 

“No, ma’am, — no!” And Sandy Joe rushed 
in where neither angels nor men just now dared 
to tread. “No, ma’am: she is Mr. Harper’s 
own little girl — the baby they thought was 


AT LAST 


205 


dead, but she wasn’t. Mr. Lamont paid the 
nurse to steal her away and give her to Gran; 
and I found out all about it, and we tracked 
Lisette to — ” 

But Joe’s recital was never finished. 

‘Thil — Phil — Phil!” The wild, rapturous 
cry reached the family conclave in the library 
and brought all its members hurrying in afright 
to the conservatory, to find Jackie strained to 
her mother’s heaving breast. “Phil, is it true — 
is it true*? Oh, I feel — I know it is! This is 
our baby, — our lost baby! Tell me it is true, 
Phil — what this boy says! Tell me it is true 
— true — true !” 

“Nell darling, yes, yes!” Philip Harper 
gathered mother and child in his strong arms. 
“It is true, Nell. But call Weston quick, 
mother !” — as he felt her sink closer in his em- 
brace. “Quick! This will be her death!” 

“Death? Oh, no, no, Phil!” And the 
radiant face lifted to his dispelled all fear. “It 
is life — oh, thank God for His mercy! — life! 
For, with you — you — and our baby again, it is 
life — life — life !” 


206 


AT LAST 


And so the angels and Sandy Joe brought 
Jackie to her own at last. And that Jackie and 
Jackie’s papa and mamma were properly grate- 
ful, it is needless to say. In the beautiful new 
life that opened to the little girl that day, Joe 
kept and still keeps his big brother’s place, 
brave, bold, cheerful and strong; “Sandy” still 
in word and deed, though the bright locks have 
taken on a darker hue, and he treads paths that 
lead to even higher places than the windy corner 
sky-scraper. 

But Joe still remembers the friends of the 
old rough days. Poor La Vielle, who, after 
Lisette’s death, came back, rather broken in 
spirit and voice, to be cared for by old Parley 
Voo, was looked after kindly. For Micky Fay 
and Tim Monaghan and other old neighbors of 
Squatter Town, Joe ever had a friendly grasp 
and a helping hand. 

Old Nance, her “conjured sperrit” laid, gave 
up dying for the nonce, and was soon, as LTncle 
Jeff declared, “spry” as ever again. Louis La- 
mont, whose evil deeds were screened as far as 
possible by the Harpers for his mother’s sake. 


AT LAST 


207 


did not long cause that tender heart any anxiety. 
He died within a year after his flight to France, 
where Philip Harper had generously provided 
for his needs. 

The blackened ruins of Larchmont have long 
since been cleared away ; and on the sunny slope, 
swept by the breeze from the sea, stands the 
Home of the Angel Guardian, where one hun- 
dred friendless little ones find tender care. 

And in the wide, pretty lodge at the gate 
where the white-winged Angel of Joe’s fever 
dreams ever stands on guard, good Mrs. Bryan 
lives with her happy brood, like — as she de- 
clares to her old enemy but present crony, Mrs. 
Mullan — “a lady born.” And, despite all the 
splendors of Pinehurst and Grandmamma Har- 
per’s, Jackie finds in this humble, cheerful home 
an unforgotten charm. The old clock ticking 
on the mantel-shelf, the flowered china in the 
corner cupboard, the braided rug before the 
blazing fire, bring back memories that keep the 
lovely heiress of Pinehurst, amid all the splen- 
dor of rank and wealth, the sweet, tender little 
Jackie of old. 


208 


AT LAST 


“Sure she’s the darlingest little creature in 
the world, and always was!” declared Mrs. 
Bryan after one of Jackie’s visits. “As for 
Joe” — and the kindly woman’s face beamed — 
“he hasn’t that red head for nothing. The 
way he fought and worked for that child sur- 
passed anything I ever saw. Sure, as I told 
good Father More when he was out here saying 
Mass for us last Sunday, and Joe serving on the 
altar and looking fine in his surplice, whether 
it’s lawyer or doctor or priest Sandy Joe turns 
into, none can tell; but it will be the great, 
grand, Christian nobleman he will make — of 
that I am certain.” 


THE END 


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THEIR CHOICE. Skinner. 


A series of in- 
teresting articles 
on a great variety 
-of subjects of 
much educational 
value. Profusely 
illustrated. 


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46 

00 


HOSTAGE OF WAR. Bonesteel. 

HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY. Egan. 

IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN CHEST. Barton. 

“JACK.” 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. Taggart. 

JACK O’LANTERN. Waggaman. 

JUNIORS OF ST. BEDE’S. Bryson. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First Series. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Second Series. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Third Series. 

KLONDIKE PICNIC. A. Donnelly. 

LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE CHILD JESUS 
FROM MANY LANDS. Lutz. 

LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES, THE. Delamare. 
LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST, THE. Roberts. 

LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE LAKE. Nixon-Roulet. 
LITTLE MISSY. Waggaman. 

LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. Taggart. 
MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE’S, THE. Brunowe. 

MAKING OF MORTLAKE, THE. Copus, S.J. 

MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS, THE. Spalding, S.J. 
MARY TRACY’S FORTUNE. Sadlier. 

MELOR OF THE SILVER HAND. Bearne, S.J. 

MILLY AVELING. S. T. Smith. 

MORE FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. 

MOSTLY BOYS. Finn, S.J. 

MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY, THE. Sadlier. 

MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY, THE. Barton. 

MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL, THE. Sadlier. 

NAN NOBODY. Waggaman. 

NED RIEDER. Wehs. 

NEW BOYS AT RIDINGDALE, THE. Bearne, S.J. 

NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE’S, THE. Brunowe. 

OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED BED. S. T. Smith. 

OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE. Spalding, S.J. 

OUR LADY’S LUTENIST. Bearne, S.J. 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. Mannix. 

PAULINE ARCHER. Sadlier. 

PERCY WYNN. Finn. S.J. 

PERIL OF DIONYSIO. Mannix. 

PETRONILLA, AND OTHER STORIES. Donnelly. 
PICKLE AND PEPPER. Dorsey. 

PILGRIM FROM IRELAND, A. Carnot. 

PLAYWATER PLOT. Waggaman. 

POVERINA. Buckenham. 

QUEEN’S PAGE, THE. Hinkson. 

QUEEN’S PROMISE, THE. Waggaman. 

RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND, THE. Spalding, S.J. 
RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. Bonesteel. 

RIDINGDALE FLOWER SHOW. Bearne, S.J. 

ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON. Bearne, S.J. 
SEA-GULLS’ ROCK, THE. San^au. 

SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS, THE. Nixon-Roulet. 
SHADOWS LIFTED. Copus, S.J. 

SHEER PLUCK. Bearne, S.J.^^^ ^ 

SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK, THE. Spalding, S.J. 
ST. CUTHBERT’S. Copus, S.J. ^ 

STRONG-ARM, OF AVALON. Waggaman. 

SUGAR-CAMP AND AFTER, THE. Spalding, S.J. 

SUMMER AT WOODVILLE, A. Sadlier. 

TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE MIDDLE AGES* Cap^lla. 
TALISMAN. THE. Sadlier. 


0 45 

0 85 

1 15 
0 45 
0 85 
0 45 

0 85 

1 00 
1 00 
1 00 
0 85 

0 50 
0 45 
0 45 
0 60 
0 45 
0 85 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
0 50 
0 85 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
0 85 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
0 45 
0 ■'45 
0 85 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
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0 85 
0 45 
0 60 
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0 85 
0 45 
0 45 
0 85 
0 85 
0 85 
0 85 
0 85 
0 85 
0 45 
0 50 
0 60 


TAMING OF POLLY, THE. Dorsey. 0 85 

THAT FOOTBALL GAME. Finn, S.J. 0 85 

THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY ONE. Taggart. 0 45 

TOLD IN THE TWILIGHT. Mother Salome. 0 85 

TOM LOSELY: BOY. Copus, S.J. 0 86 

TOM’S LUCK-POT. Waggaman. 0 45 

TOM PLAYFAIR. Finn, S.J. 0 85 

TOORALLADDY. Walsh. 0 45 

TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE, THE. Waggaman. 0 60 

TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN, THE. Taggart. 0 85 

TWO LITTLE GIRLS. Mack. 0 45 

VIOLIN-MAKER OF MITTENWALD, THE. Schaching. 0 45 

WAYWARD WINIFRED. Sadlier. 0 85 

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT. Taggart. 0 85 

WITCH OF RIDINGDALE, THE. Bearne, S.J. 0 85 

YOUNG COLOR GUARD, THE. Bonesteel. 0 45 


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EVERYBODY 

Novels and Religious Books by the best Catholic Authors. Copy- 
right books. Substantially and attractively bound in cloth. Complete 
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Complete illustrated catalogue will he sent on application. 

Sizes of books in inches: 48mo, about 3^x2^; large 48mo, about 
4x2?i; small 32mo, about 4^x3; 32mo, about 4%x354; oblong 
32mo, about 5}4 x3j4; 24mo, about 6j4x3)4; oblong 24roo, about 
6Hx3K; 16mo, about 6^x4^; small 12mo, 7x6. 


FATHER LASANCE’S PRAYER-BOOKS 


MY PRAYER-BO(JK: HAPPINESS IN GOOD- 
NESS. Reflections, Counsels, Prayers and De- 
votions. 16mo. 

MY PRAYER-BOOK. India Paper edition. 16mo. 

MY PRAYER-BOOK. India Paper edition. With 
Epistles and Gospels. 16mo. 

BLESSED SACRAMENT BOOK. Offers a larger 
and greater variety of prayers than any other 
book in English. Large 16mo. 

WITH GOD. A Book of Prayers and Reflections. 
16mo. 

THE YOUNG MAN’S GUIDE. For manly boys 
and young men. Oblong 24mo. 


Cloth. 
1 25 


1 50 
1 25 
0 75 


Leather. 

Gilt. 

1 76—2 50 

2 00 — 5 00 

2 25—2 75 

2 00—4 50 
1 76—6 00 
1 25—1 76 


Cloth. 

THE CATHOLIC GIRL’S GUIDE. Counsels for 
Girls in the Ordinary Walks of Life and in 
Particular for Children of Mary. Oblong 16mo. 1 25 
PRAYER-BOOK FOR RELIGIOUS. A complete 
manual of prayers for members of all relig- 
ious communities. Small 12mo. net, 1 60 

THOUGHTS ON THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. Re- 
flections on the General Principles of the Re- 
ligious Life. Small 12mo. net, 1 50 

VISITS TO JESUS IN THE TABERNACLE. 

Hours and Half-Hours of Adoration before the 
Blessed Sacrament. 16mo. 1 25 

MANUAL OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. Con- 
ferences on the Blessed Sacrament and Eu- 
charistic Devotions. Oblong 24mo. 0 75 

SHORT VISITS TO THE BLESSED SACRA- 
MENT. Oblong 32 mo. 0 15 

MASS DEVOTIONS, AND READINGS ON THE 
MASS. Twelve methods of hearing Mass. Ob. 

24mo. 0 75 

THE SACRED HEART BOOK. Oblong 24mo. 0 76 

LITTLE MANUAL OF ST. ANTHON^ Oblong 

32mo. 0 16 

A PIOUS PREPARATION FOR FIRST HOLY 

COMMUNION. 16mo. 0 75 


PRAYER-BOOKS FOR GENERAL USE 


ALL FOR JESUS. With Epistles and Gospels. 

Small 32mo. 0 

BREAD OF LIFE, THE. A Complete Com- 
munion Book for Catholics. By Rev. F. 
WiLLAM. Oblong 24mo. 0 

COME, LET US ADORE. A Eucharistic Man- 
ual. By Rev. B. Hammer, O.F.M. Small 
32mo. 0 


DEVOTIONS AND PRAYERS BY ST. AL- 
PHONSUS LIGUORI. a Complete Manual of 
Pious Exercises for Every Day, Every Week, 
and Every Month. Ward. 16mo. 1 

DEVOTIONS AND PRAYERS FOR THE SICK- 
ROOM. A Book for Evenr Catholic Family. 
By Rev. J. A. Krebs, C.SS^.R. 12mo. 1 

DOMINICAN MISSION BOOK. By a Dominican 
Father. 16mo. 0 

EUCHARISTIC SOUL ELEVATIONS. Thoughts 
and Texts Gleaned from Holy Writ. By 
Rev. W. E. Stadelman, C.S.Sp. Oblong 24mo. 0 
FLOWERS OF PIETY. Approved Prayers for_ 

Catholics. 48 mo. 0 


FOLLOWING OF CHRIST, THE. By Thomas a 
Kempis. With Reflections, etc. 32mo 
FOLLOWING OF CHRIST, THE. By Thomas a 
Kempis. Without Reflections. 32rao. 
FOLLOV/ING OF CHRIST, THE. By Thomas X 
Kempis. Illustrated. India Paper, Edition de 
Luxe. 32mo. 

GARLAND OF PRAYER, THE. A dainty prayer- 
book. Contains Nuptial Mass. 3 2 mo. 
golden key TO HEAVEN. With Epistles and 
Cospelsi Small 22mo. 


0 

0 


0 


30 

75 

75 


25 

25 

76 

60 

20 

40 

36 


30 


Leather. 

Gilt. 

1 76—2 50 

2 50—3 60 
2 50 

1 75—2 75 

1 26 
0 60 

1 26 
1 25 

0 60 

1 25 


0 40—4 60 

1 25 
1 25 

1 76 


1 60—2 00 
0 90 

0 30—3 25 
0 60—2 00 

0 56—1 76 

1 26—3 76 
1 26—4 60 
0 60—1 80 


18 


Cloth. 

HELP FOR THE POOR SOULS IN' PURGA- 
TORY. By Jos. Ackermann. Small 32mo. 0 60 

HOLY HOUR OF ADORATION, THE. By 

Right Rev. W. Stang, D.D. Oblong 24mo. 0 60 

IMITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. After 
the model of the “Imitation of Christ.” 


Small 32mo. 0 60 

IMITATION OF THE SACRED HEART OF 

JESUS. By Rev. Arnoudt, S.J. 16mo. net, 1 26 
INTRODUCTION TO A DEVOUT LIFE. By 

St. Francis de Sales. Small 32mo. 0 60 

KEY OF HEAVEN, THE. With Epistles and 

Gospels. 48mo. 0 26 

LITTLE MASS BOOK. By Right Rev. Mgr. J. 

S. M. Lynch. Paper. 32mo. 0 06 

MANUAL OF THE HOLY NAME. 24mo. 0 50 

MANUAL OF THE SACRED HEART, NEW. 

oblong 24mo. 0 35 

MANUAL OF ST. ANTHONY, NEW. 32mo. 0 50 

MANUAL OF ST. JOSEPH, LITTLE. By Right 

Rev. Mgr. A. A. Lings. Oblong 32mo. 0 15 

MISSION-BOOK FOR THE MARRIED. By 

Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 32mo. 0 60 

MISSION-BOOK FOR THE SINGLE. By Rev. 

F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 32mo. 0 50 

MISSION-BOOK OF THE REDEMPTORIST 

FATHERS, THE. 32mo. 0 50 

MISSION REMEMBRANCE OF THE REDEMP- 
TORIST FATHERS. By Rev. P. Geier- 
MANN. 32mo. 0 50 

OFFICE OF THE HOLY WEEK, COMPLETE. 

16mo. 0 45 

OUR FAVORITE DEVOTIONS. By Right Rev. 

Mgr. a. a. Lings. Oblong 24mo. 0 76 


OUR FAVORITE DEVOTIONS. By Right Rev. 
Mgr. a. a. Lings. India Paper edition. Ob- 
long 24mo. 

OUR FAVORITE NOVENAS. By Right Rev. 


Mgr. a. a. Lings. Oblong 24mo. 0 75 

OUR FAVORITE NOVENAS. By Right Rev. 

Mgr. a. a. Lings. India Paper edition. Ob- 
long 24mo. 

OUR MONTHLY DEVOTIONS. By Right Rev. 

Mgr. a. a. Lings. 16mo. 1 26 

PEARLS OF PRAYER. The tiniest prayer-book 

published. Measures only x 2 inches. 0 46 
POCKET COMPANION. Approved Prayers. Ob. 

48mo. 0 10 

PRACTICAL CATHOLIC, THE. Maxims Suited 
to Catholics of the Day. By Father Palau. 

Ob. 24mo. 0 60 

PRACTICAL CATHOLIC, THE. Maxims Suited 
to Catholics of the Day. By Father Palau. 

India Paper edition with illustrations. Ob- 
long 24mo. 

SERAPHIC GUIDE, THE. 24mo. o 60 


VEST-POCKET GEMS OF DEVOTION. Oblong 

32mo. 0 20 

VEST-POCKET GEMS OF DEVOTION. With 
Epistles and Gospels. Oblong 32mo. 0 26 

14 


Leather. 

Gilt. 

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0 90 

1 00 
1 76 

1 00 

0 40—6 00 

1 10 

0 76—1 86 

0 75 

0 60 

1 00 
1 00 
1 00 

1 00—1 60 

0 90—1 10 

1 20 

1 60—2 60 
1 20 

1 60—2 50 

2 00 

0 60—2 25 

0 25—1 00 

1 00—1 60 

1 25 — 3 00 
0 75 

0 36—3 00 
0 50—4 50 


VISITS TO THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT 
AND TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 

By St. Alphonsus Liguori. 32mo. 0 35 

PRAYER-BOOKS WITH LARGE TYPE 
KEY OF HEAVEN. With Epistles and Gospels. 

24mo. 0 45 

KEY OF HEAVEN. Epistles and Gospels. 32mo. 0 30 
POCKET MANUAL. Epistles and Gospels. Ob- 
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WAY TO HEAVEN, THE. Contains many indul- 

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BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ MISSION-BOOK Large 

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BREAD OF ANGELS. Instructions and Prayers 
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Rev. B. Hammer, O.F.M. Large 48mo. 0 25 

CHILD OF MARY, THE. Especially for the Use 

of First Communicants. 32mo. 0 45 

CHILDREN’S PRAYER-BOOK, THE. By Rev. 

P. J. Sloan. Small 32mo. 0 20 

CHILD’S PRAYER-BOOK, THE. 48mo. 0 15 

DEVOUT CHILD, THE. With 18 full-page illus- 
trations of the Mass. 48mo. 0 10 

FIRST COMMUNICANT’S MANUAL. Small 

32mo. 0 35 

FIRST COMMUNION PRAYER-BOOK FOR 
SMALL CHILDREN. By Rev. P. J. Sloan. 

Small 32mo. 0 20 

LITTLE ALTAR BOY’S MANUAL. Instructions 
for Serving at Mass, Vespers, etc. With 
prayers. 0 25 

little first COMMUNICANT, THE. By 

Rev. B. Hammer, O.F.M. Small 32mo. 0 25 

PIOUS CHILD, THE. With 18 full-page illustra- 
tions of the Mass. 48mo. 0 12 

SHORT PRAYERS FOR YOUNG CATHOLICS. 

With Epistles and Gospels. 48mo. 0 20 

SODALIST’S. VADE MECUM, THE. Prayer- 
Book and Hymnal for the Children of Mary. 

32mo. 0 40 


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COM- 

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The following catalogues will be sent free on application: 

Catalogue of Benziger Brothers’ Standard Catholic Publications. 

Catalogue of School Books. 

Catalogue of Prayer-Books. 

Catalogue of Importc J Books. 

Catalogue of Premium Books. 

Catalogue of Libraries. 

Catalogue of Latin and Liturgical Books. 

A copy of “Catholic Books m English” now in print in America 
and Europe will be sent on receipt of 50 cents. Bound in cloth, it 
contains over 5,000 titles and oyer 300 illustrations of authors. 
Supplements will be issued from time to time to make the catalogue 
as complete as possible, and these will be furnished free of charge 
to those ordering “Catholic Books in English.” 

15 





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